Category Insights Manager

We are hiring Rockstars to join our Sauer Brands team!

About Sauer Brands
Sauer Brands is a leading manufacturer of condiments, spices, and seasonings with a rich history dating back to the 19th century. With headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, our portfolio includes iconic brands such as Duke’s Mayonnaise, Mateo’s Salsa, Kernel Seasons, and The Spice Hunter. We are committed to delighting our consumers with exceptional product experiences every day.

Overall Goal of Position:
We are looking for a passionate, strategic, and analytic Category Insights Manager with 5-7 years of consumer-packaged goods (CPG) experience to join our growing Consumer Insights team. The Category Insights Manager will be responsible for driving deep consumer and category understanding across the Sauer Brands portfolio of products. This role will involve leveraging syndicated and custom data to support strategic decision making and growth opportunities for all our brands. It is critical for the desired candidate to be able to turn complex data into actionable, insight driven, and easy-to-understand recommendations for our cross-functional stakeholders.

Job Summary:
The Category Insights Manager will report to the Director of Consumer Insights and Innovation and will work closely with the Insights team, the Brand Marketing teams, the Consumer Marketing team, the Retail and Foodservice sales teams, external research vendors, and other internal cross-functional partners to help establish themselves and the Insights team as the experts in Sauer Brands’ categories. If you’re a strategic thinker with a passion for data-driven decision-making, we’d love to hear from you!

Key Responsibilities:

• Customer Stories: Support brand marketing teams and sales managers to drive tailored data-driven storytelling for customer pitches.
• Category Leadership: Collaborate with cross-functional teams to help develop and/or analyze category strategies, pricing, assortment, and promotional planning.
• Custom Market Research: Design, manage, and analyze results of both qualitative and quantitative custom market research studies to understand consumer needs, market trends, and competitor activity.
• Innovation: Support the product innovation process, including identifying opportunities for growth (within existing or new categories), validating them internally, consumer testing, and pre-launch development.
• Business Performance and Brand Health Tracking: Track key performance indicators (i.e., sales trends, distribution, velocities, penetration, awareness, etc.) to monitor category and brand performance; prepare clear and concise presentations to communicate trends and insights to leadership.
• Analysis & Reporting: Develop and maintain timely and accurate dashboards using syndicated data (Circana / IRI, Nielsen, Supply Track, Technomic, YouGov, etc.) for sales, marketing, and leadership stakeholders.
• Research Vendor Management: Work with our research vendor partners as the primary point of contact for both our syndicated and custom research capabilities.

What We’re Looking For:
Personal Characteristics

• Entrepreneurial drive and “go-getter” attitude
• Comfortable with a high level of ownership and accountability
• Self-starter, comfortable working independently with limited direction
• Ability to confidently communicate with senior leadership
• Analytical but also able to creatively think outside the box to answer critical business questions
• Highly organized and able to juggle multiple priorities with tight deadlines
• Dependable team player with a positive attitude
• Personal values that mesh with Sauer Brands’ values
• Team oriented, communicative, collaborative, flexible, and willing to pitch in where needed to meet the needs of the business
• Passion for our brands!

Education & Experience

• 5-7 years of relevant experience, preferably in the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) industry
• Bachelor’s degree required, MBA preferred
• Experience with syndicated data platforms (Circana / IRI, Nielsen, Supply Track, Technomic, YouGov, 84.51, etc.) strongly preferred
• Advanced Excel, PowerPoint, and Power BI skills will be critical for success in this role
• Ability to collect, analyze, and present information in a succinct manner
• Ability to dig deep into numbers and identify root causes of what’s driving results
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Demonstrated progression in size and scope of responsibilities
• Skilled at building trusting and advisory relationships with key cross-functional stakeholders

Other

• Position will be based out of our Richmond, VA headquarters office with a hybrid schedule of 50% in person and 50% remote
• Occasional travel may be required

What Is In It For You?
Our company acknowledges talented people are attracted to companies that provide competitive pay, comprehensive benefits packages and outstanding advancement opportunities. For this reason we offer a Comprehensive Benefits Plan that includes the following:

• 401K
• Medical/Dental/Vision Coverage
• Vacation, Sick Days and Holidays
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Employee and Dependent Life Insurance
• Voluntary Disability Insurance
• Other Voluntary Insurance Options

Sauer Brands, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.