Senior Category Manager

About Kerry

About the role

Kerry is looking for an experienced Senior Category Manager to lead strategic sourcing activities across Europe for dairy and dairy-adjacent categories. The role will develop and execute sourcing strategies that deliver sustainable cost savings, protect continuity of supply, and maintain high standards of quality and supplier performance. The successful candidate will work closely with regional and global stakeholders to drive procurement initiatives, build strong supplier partnerships, and contribute to Kerry procurement and business objectives.

The dairy category now requires a specialist who can move beyond traditional tendering and annual negotiation. The role requires the ability to interpret milk pool economics, commodity volatility, processor and farmer models, pricing mechanisms, Scope 3 / FLAG reduction levers and customer-backed sustainability value, then convert that insight into practical sourcing decisions.

Key responsibilities

Category strategy and sourcing leadership

• Lead sourcing activities across Europe for dairy and assigned categories, developing regional category strategies aligned with global objectives.
• Build future-proof 3- to 5-year sourcing strategies across cost, carbon, resilience, customer commitments and security of supply.
• Identify, evaluate and manage supplier relationships to optimise total cost of ownership and long-term category value.

Commercial pricing and risk management

• Negotiate contracts, pricing agreements and commercial terms, including indexed, formula, open-book or cost-plus structures where appropriate.
• Monitor milk, butter, SMP, WMP, whey, cheese, lactose and cream markets, including EU production, feed, weather, export flows, energy and currency impacts.
• Develop buying programmes and risk frameworks that improve exposure management rather than relying solely on normal negotiation cycles.

Supplier ecosystem and stakeholder leadership

• Build strong partnerships with processors, farmer groups, commercial teams, finance, sustainability, technical and quality stakeholders.
• Resolve operational and commercial supplier issues while maintaining compliance with Kerry standards and policies.
• Challenge incumbent supplier and processor models where alternative supplier, direct milk pool or producer-partnership structures can create differentiated value.

Low-carbon and regenerative dairy sourcing

• Translate low-carbon dairy opportunities into measurable commercial sourcing programmes, including supplier switching, on-farm interventions, regenerative agriculture, reformulation and customer-backed value models.
• Assess farm-level carbon drivers such as methane, manure, nitrogen, feed, grazing and soil health, ensuring robust verification and data quality.
• Partner with internal sustainability and commercial teams to connect carbon reduction with competitive advantage, customer value and procurement strategy.

Performance, governance and continuous improvement

• Track category spend performance and report budget, savings, risk and supplier performance impacts.
• Review contracts, bids, proposals and supplier agreements with appropriate governance and compliance discipline.
• Support procurement activities linked to acquisitions, due diligence, business integration and continuous improvement projects.

Qualifications and skills

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Business, Supply Chain, Procurement, Food & Agriculture, Commercial Management or a related field.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in Procurement, Strategic Sourcing, Commodity Management or Category Management, ideally within dairy, food ingredients, agriculture, food manufacturing or adjacent commodity markets.
• Proven track record of delivering procurement value through cost savings, resilience, supplier development, carbon value or commercial risk management.
• Strong commercial, negotiation and supplier management experience in an international or matrix organisation.
• Practical knowledge of dairy commodity dynamics, pricing models, processor economics, cooperative or farmer supply models, and sustainability-linked sourcing is strongly preferred.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders across procurement, sustainability, technical, quality, finance and commercial functions.