Supply Chain, Sr. Manager

About Us:

Life Alive Organic Cafe is the place for positive eating, where enjoying organic, crave-worthy food fuels a life filled with energy, optimism and simply feeling good. Through each joyful interaction and scratch-prepared dish served in our unique, quick service cafes, we work toward bringing to life our higher purpose to energize the vitality all living beings and our planet.

The Role

The Senior Manager, Supply Chain is responsible for owning Life Alive’s purchasing, vendor relationships, and cost savings projects. They will support operations with supply chain activities on a day-to-day basis, manage the sourcing and distribution of all ingredients, and ensure quality management. They are a key partner to our operators in meeting their cost targets, owning the food cost and paper cost lines in Life Alive’s P&L. They are responsible for all vendor management, and own Life Alive’s key initiative to drive annual cost savings projects across the cafes. The Senior Manager approaches their role through the lens of sustainability, and helps Life Alive to be in integrity with its mission and values, particularly our commitment to quality, organic produce. This position reports directly to our VP of Supply Chain and Culinary Operations.

Key Responsibilities

• Effectively lead, develop, and manage all aspects of Life Alive’s supply chain to ensure continuous supply and meet the needs of a growing brand

• Support all cafe sourcing:

• Partner with Operations to understand and identify their needs

• Recognize trends and their impact on the business including keeping each cafe in stock

• Accurately forecasting opportunities and obstacles

• Taking action to solve problems and issues as they arise

• Build and maintain vendor relationships to support cafes with all supply chain activities.

• Manage vetting, developing, and maintaining supplier, distributor, and other vendor relationships

• Manage and coordinate vendor relationships, supply, and distribution across Life Alive’s multiple markets - and ensure as we grow and continue to expand geographically that we are set up for success

• Negotiate supplier, distributor and other vendor contracts.

• Ensure product quality standards from suppliers and distributors are continuously met. Take timely and effective corrective actions when needed.

• Effectively communicate to reduce the friction between cafes & our vendors

• Facilitate new products launches / promotional events

• Own Life Alive key initiative to “lighten the backpack” for our operators by Identifying and executing annual cost improvement opportunities 

• Partner with Operations and Finance to own the cafe cost of goods sold management 

• Implement ideas to optimize cost of goods sold while meeting Life Alive’s product specifications

• Work with Operators to manage Declining Ledgers and Purchase Folders, and partner with VP Operations to deliver COGS in line with expectations and budget

• Partner with Senior Finance Manager to ensure accurate and timely period-end inventory

• Partner with Culinary Innovation to source new ingredients in support of seasonal product launches / LTOs

• Pricing Audit: Monitor/manage produce, broad line product and paper goods pricing to ensure we are paying what we expect

• Monitor weekly pricing variances from each distributor.

• Monitor and anticipate supply chain swings and potential downstream impact on pricing

• Analyze pricing data to identify cost-saving opportunities and present findings and recommendations based on pricing comparisons.

• Jointly own Theoretical Food Costing with Finance - partner closely with Senior Finance Manager to deliver accurate Theoretical Food Costing and understand implications of expected price changes 

• Support implementation of supply chain sustainability strategy 

• Build and maintain supplier records, including code of conduct, updated COI, and regular sustainability reviews

• Support regular ingredient and vendor auditing and reporting 

• Identify opportunities for improvement and present findings and recommendations based on needs analysis

• Support analysis of program proposals and presentations:

• Create thoughtful program proposals, especially in terms of supply chain considerations.

• Drive the preparation of presentational materials related to supply chain analysis

• Provide insights and recommendations based on supply chain analysis

Our Sr. Manager, Supply Chain is someone who is:

• Passionate about ensuring our cafes are well stocked with delicious, high quality food every day

• Eager to build the supply chain infrastructure to support Life Alive in its effort to energize the vitality of all living beings and the planet

• An exceptional collaborator and communicator comfortable working across different stakeholders and skill sets, with an ability to manage up and down.

• Highly analytical with strong attention to detail 

• Highly organized and process-oriented, with an ability to prioritize and work under pressure

• A clear, assertive, and direct communicator, with a competitive “can-do” approach to success, and ready to advocate on behalf of Life Alive with vendors & distributors

• Based in Greater Boston 

Qualifications:

• 1 years’ experience in purchasing and supply management  

• Experience in produce and restaurant industry

• Extensive computer skills: required with all Microsoft Office programs, especially Excel. 

• Experience with inventory management and/or food costing software preferred but not required

• Ability to work collaboratively and effectively with people who do not report to you, with an understanding that you need their support to do your job and /or they need your support to do their job.

• A track record of solving work-related problems independently in a confident and decisive manner.

• Ability to systematically analyze problems to identify and understand root causes, costs, business needs, and possible solutions. 

• A proven track record of meeting deadlines and goals and comfort multitasking. 

Perks & Benefits:

• Plentiful Food Discounts & Yoga Perks

• Flexible work schedule with the ability to split time working from home and in our cafés

• 401k and IRA, Life Alive matches 401k contributions at 100%, up to 3%

• Medical, Dental & Vision coverage

• Life Insurance, MetLaw, TeleDoc, Short Term & Long Term Disability, Mental Health Support via My Strength

• Parking and Transportation Reimbursement

• $150 stipend for home office setup

• Paid time off:

• 10 days paid vacation

• 40 hours paid sick leave

• 8 hours of community service pay

• 8 paid holidays

Life Alive is an equal-opportunity employer, and we encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds to apply. We look forward to welcoming a dynamic leader who will contribute to our mission of energizing the vitality of all living beings and our planet through plant-based cuisine and sustainable practices.We strive to foster a community where all feel welcome, safe, and valued. We embrace all differences of age, sexual orientation, gender and its expression, race, culture and ethnicity, national origin, mental and physical health and ability, religious background, marital status, family structure, citizenship, education, and military or veterans’ status. Life Alive invites you to bring your whole self to work.

Salary : $150