Function:
The Director of Food Sourcing and Procurement provides strategic and operational leadership for CFB's food sourcing, food purchasing, allocation, procurement policy, and procurement procedure functions. Working in partnership with the COO, this role contributes to strategy and is responsible for translating approved strategy into annual work plans, forecasts, performance measures, procurement controls, and cross-functional execution.
This position uses data, forecasting, market information, inventory trends, partner feedback, and community need to ensure CFB has the right mix, volume, quality, timing, cost structure, and distribution approach for food and essential products across the service area. The Director oversees assigned managers and staff responsible for sourcing, purchasing, allocation, procurement support, and product flow.
Duties and Responsibilities:
Data, Forecasting, and Work Plan Execution
- Develop and execute annual food sourcing, purchasing, allocation, and procurement work plans aligned with approved strategy.
- Use data and forecasting to evaluate product needs, sourcing trends, purchasing needs, inventory levels, product mix, partner demand, agency capacity, seasonality, market conditions, and service area priorities.
- Establish goals, dashboards, evaluation measures, and reporting routines to monitor sourcing, purchasing, allocation, product flow, procurement compliance, and budget performance.
- Forecast product gaps and recommend sourcing, purchasing, allocation, budget, or operational adjustments.
- Prepare updates and recommendations for the COO, leadership, funders, donors, as needed.
Food Sourcing, Purchasing, and Donor/Vendor Management
- Execute approved food sourcing plans across grocery rescue, produce recovery, manufacturers, distributors, growers, wholesalers, Feeding America, USDA commodities, regional cooperatives, and other food acquisition channels.
- Build and maintain relationships with food donors, growers, vendors, regional food banks, industry partners, and sourcing networks.
- Manage donor prospecting, stewardship, performance tracking, issue resolution, and donor recognition in coordination with Development.
- Execute purchased food plans for CFB programs and food made available to agency partners through CFB's agency purchasing model.
- Use purchasing as a gap-filling tool based on community need, partner demand, inventory trends, budget, market conditions, and forecasted gaps.
- Monitor product mix, SKU selection, pricing, cost recovery, replenishment, vendor performance, inventory turns, agency demand, and budget utilization.
- Represent CFB in donor meetings, food industry events, network meetings, trainings, tours, and presentations as needed.
Allocation and Product Flow
- Oversee allocation planning and product flow for donated and purchased products across agency partners, mobile distributions, Resource Centers, programs, and other distribution channels.
- Ensure allocation practices are consistent, equitable, documented, and aligned with product availability, partner capacity, program priorities, food safety requirements, and operational realities.
- In partnership with cross-functional team members maintain allocation frameworks, guardrails, decision rules, escalation processes, and reporting.
- Ensure perishable and time-sensitive products move quickly to reduce waste and maximize community impact.
- Use allocation data to identify aging product, slow-moving items, capacity constraints, service gaps, and opportunities to improve distribution.
Procurement Governance and Compliance
- Maintain and implement CFB's Procurement Policy and Procurement Procedure in partnership with Finance and organizational leadership.
- Recommend updates to procurement procedures, forms, tools, documentation standards, and internal controls.
- Provide procurement oversight for food purchasing and capital needs, including vendor selection, quotes or bids, noncompetitive justification, contract routing, approvals, and required documentation.
- Ensure applicable purchases follow procurement thresholds and comply with CFB policies, grant requirements, contract requirements, and applicable laws and regulations.
- Maintain complete, organized, and audit-ready procurement files.
- Coordinate with Finance on vendor setup, payment support, invoice documentation, capital review, fixed asset documentation, and separation of procurement and payment responsibilities.
- Conduct periodic procurement file reviews to identify documentation gaps, approval issues, policy exceptions, vendor risks, and training needs.
Leadership, Budget, and Compliance
- Develop and monitor department work plans, budget needs, performance measures, and reporting.
- Coordinate across teams to align sourcing, purchasing, allocation, and procurement work.
- Lead continuous improvement efforts that strengthen forecasting, procurement processes, donor and vendor management, purchasing workflows, agency purchasing, allocation practices, reporting, and cross-functional coordination.
- Supervise and support assigned managers and staff through coaching, workload planning, performance management, and leadership development.
- Support compliance with food safety standards, donor requirements, grant restrictions, USDA requirements, Feeding America standards, contract requirements, and applicable local, state, and federal regulations.
- Support succession planning, cross-training, and documentation to ensure continuity of procurement, sourcing, purchasing, allocation, and forecasting work.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
- Strategic thinking combined with strong operational execution.
- Strong analytical skills and ability to use data, forecasting, and performance trends to guide recommendations and decisions.
- Knowledge of food sourcing, food purchasing, procurement, donor development, vendor management, allocation strategy, product flow, and audit-ready documentation practices.
- Knowledge of cost recovery, pricing strategy, landed cost, inventory turns, SKU management, vendor evaluation, agency demand planning, and financial stewardship.
- Ability to develop and execute annual work plans, forecasts, dashboards, reports, and performance measures.
- Ability to align procurement, sourcing, purchasing, and allocation practices with audit requirements, grant restrictions, internal controls, budget stewardship, operational capacity, and community need.
- Strong negotiation, communication, relationship-building, planning, reporting, and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to lead managers, build team capacity, and manage accountability across multiple functions.
- Demonstrated commitment to CFB's mission, values, and service to diverse communities.