Key Account Manager - Grocery Channel

Shearer’s Foods, founded in 1974 and headquartered in Massillon, OH, is a leading manufacturer of salty snacks, cookies, and crackers. Specializing in private label and co-manufacturing, Shearer’s is the largest supplier of private brand salty snacks and second-largest supplier of private brand cookies and crackers. 

With a strong focus on innovation, service, quality, and sustainability, Shearer’s has been awarded the food industry’s highest award for environmental sustainability, as well as multiple Supplier of the Year awards. 

Operating 16 locations across North America and employing more than 5000 team members, Shearer’s is driven by its core values of People, Grow, Impact and Win. The company mission is to deliver exceptional products and services that make snacking a time to celebrate for our customers, colleagues, and community. 

At Shearer’s Foods, we believe in a skills-first approach to recruitment and employment. This means focusing on what you can do and how you can grow, rather than traditional metrics alone. We are committed to adhering to anti-exclusion practices, removing barriers to access, and enhancing opportunities for all individuals based on merit and potential. Your skills, experience, and perspective are valuable—and we want to empower you to make your mark here with us.

Key Account Manager, Grocery Channel

Bi-lingual Language Proficiency in English & French Required

We are seeking a pair of high-caliber Key Account Manager for our Canadian and International business unit with a mandate to drive profitable and sustainable revenue and volume growth. This will be accomplished primarily by fostering and expanding existing accounts and leveraging an entrepreneurial spirit to continuously seek new manufacturing partnerships.

In this role, you will not just sell a product. You will be selling our depth of knowledge, manufacturing capabilities, our high food quality and safety standards, and overall supply chain reliability. You will act as a strategic consultant to major retailers and brand owners, guiding them from initial product concept and formulation through to commercial production. Core responsibilities include:

• Customer partnership development: Know and understand your customer’s strategic intent within the category. Become your customer’s “go-to” resource for category growth opportunities, whether opportunistic or strategic. Establish the right expectations and drive both organizations to consistently meet and exceed those expectations.
• Consultative selling: Analyze client portfolios to identify gaps where our private label manufacturing capabilities (e.g., custom formulation, packaging innovations, cost efficiencies) can add value.
• Drive profitable, sustainable growth: Drive volume and accretive margin, manage customer’s internal revenue and EBITA expectations by expertly implementing product pricing strategies and control deductions and compliance fines.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Partner closely with key cross-functional teams including: Commercialization, R&D, Quality Assurance, Operations, and Procurement to ensure each customer priority is expertly managed and executed. This includes, but is not limited to, the servicing of the customer’s everyday business needs, and project pipeline management.
• Project Pipeline Management: Collaboratively lead complex, long-cycle RFPs (Requests for Proposals) and new product projects from concept development through to regulatory approval and commercial launch

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Marketing, Food Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent industry experience).
• 5+ years of proven B2B sales experience in consumer food manufacturing required. Private label / contract manufacturing experience preferred.
• Strong working knowledge and experience within the Canadian grocery / retail landscape including strong working experience with at-least one of the five major grocery and club channel retailers in Canada. 
• Strong proficiency in essential sales competencies including, but not limited to sales forecasting, deductions management, project management and working collaboratively with cross-functional teams to maximize sales through the expert management of materials availability.
• Demonstrated success with a sales approach that is consultative, creative, collaborative, solutions oriented and partnership minded.
• Entrepreneurial spirit with a bias for action and breaking-down barriers.
• Demonstrated ability to manage ambiguity effectively.
• Ability to work expertly in both team environments and as an individual.
• Bilingual language proficiency, written and spoken, in the English and French languages is required