Commodity Manager

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Here, everything in our Sainsbury’s stores starts out in Sainsbury’s Commercial. Whether it’s the product, proposition, packaging or price, or the fact that something tastes great, our team is responsible for all food, non- food and Clothing items available in Sainsbury’s stores, digitally and on demand. You’ll discover it’s incredibly fast-paced. People here are in it together and not afraid to take risks. They’re enthusiastic too, and their amazing leadership team is right behind them. The knowledge and experience you gain here could set you up for career moves anywhere else in the business. So, if you’re passionate about your products and just as hungry to learn, you’ll fit in perfectly.

Growing our commodity risk management impact and influence

This role sits at the very heart of delivering our Next Level Sainsbury’s corporate strategy, and our ambition to delight customers by delivering transformation in our proposition, cost efficiency & our Plan for Better agenda. Ensuring we are secure in the supply of our key commodities and paying the right price for them is fundamental to the ongoing achievement of these objectives.

Our Commodities Team is a growing centre of expertise in our Sainsbury’s Commercial division, and through project-based work the goal is to protect and deliver improvement in our trading P&L through better management of our commodity exposures and supporting our trading teams in data led negotiation with suppliers.

As a Commodity Manager, you will join a dynamic, skilled and collaborative team at a pivotal moment of change and growth. Business partnering the Sainsbury’s trading teams and others, you will deliver brilliant actionable insights and industry leading commodity risk management strategies to our buying teams and lead management of key commodity exposures and inform future strategic sourcing models and work with key supplier relationships.

This is an excellent opportunity for an ambitious and motivated individual with strong commercial acumen and analytical capability, and stakeholder management skills to lead and influence decisions at the highest level and make a tangible impact across multiple categories across the year.

What you need to do

• Core Delivery and Strategic Planning
• Monitor global commodity markets and provide regular expert insight to Sainsbury’s Commercial Teams on key commodity exposures within our supply chain, including risk reports highlighting price trends, supply disruptions, and currency impacts.
• Advise Buyers and Category Directors on procurement timing, risk management and contract structures.
• Lead on the development, rollout & BAU management of commodity risk strategies across our key commodity exposures
• Design and implement robust cost models to support negotiations and ways of working with our supply base
• Work with Commodities team plus selected others to ensure compliance with risk policies
• Balance cost stability with opportunities to capture favourable market movements.
• Build commodity risk awareness across the Buying community
• Spot opportunities to deliver improvements to internal business processes that help the trading teams deal with movements in commodity markets
• Forecast demand and supply trends for key commodities.
• Contribute to scenario planning and stress‑testing for food surety risks.
• Work with the Head of Strategic Sourcing and wider commodity team to evolve and drive the commodity risk management strategy for Sainsbury’s Commercial
• Take on ad hoc project work to support the business in management of commodity exposures

2. Stakeholder Engagement

• Business partner the Buyers, Category Managers, Strategic Sourcing and other relevant teams in dealing with complex stakeholder and sourcing requests
• Build strong relationships with external stakeholders, analysts and industry bodies to stay ahead of commodity market developments.
• Manage cross-functional stakeholder relationships to ensure aligned execution and timely decision-making.

What you need to know and show

• Live our valued behaviours - ‘Own it’, ‘Make it Better’ and ‘Be human’
• Customer-first mindset with commercial pragmatism.
• Commodity management experience - Experience of working in a commercial environment and prior experience in commodity markets through the physical trade, financial markets, corporate procurement and research.
• Advanced commercial modelling – knowledge of how to build should-cost stacks to generate additional transparency and visibility for stakeholders. Knowledge of food and non-food buying models and experience in creating, developing and managing them
• Collaborative and inclusive - builds strong partnerships across functions and suppliers.
• Curious and improvement-oriented - continuously seeks smarter, leaner ways to deliver value.
• Excellent stakeholder management - proven ability to influence and align cross-functional teams.
• Analytical - Data collation, exploration, visualisation and storytelling. Experience analysing and communicating physical commodity premiums, break-evens, building trade flows and supply & demand models.
• Leadership and collaboration - confident people leader and team player who builds high-trust relationships.
• Excellent communication - clear, concise written and presentation skills for senior stakeholders. Able to distil complex analysis into short, compelling recommendations.

Typical KPIs

• Proactive provision of actionable market insight
• Stakeholder satisfaction and adoption of procurement recommendations
• Compliance to risk management policy

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits.

Here are some of them

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).