Materials Buyer

1440 Foods is a sports and active nutrition company on a mission to help energize people to unleash their potential with a focused portfolio of accessible, great-tasting health and wellness brands: Pure Protein® nutrition bars; and Body Fortress® high efficacy protein powders; MET-Rx® high-performance meal replacements; and FitCrunch® delicious high protein snacks. Join our fun, fast-paced company to be a part of growing 1440 Foods into the future!

Position Overview:

The Buyer is responsible for supporting purchasing and material availability at the production facility level. This role works closely with the corporate Material Planner, who owns demand visibility, material requirements planning, and delivery schedules. The Buyer is responsible for translating those planned requirements into purchase orders, following up with suppliers, coordinating inbound material flow, and helping ensure materials are available to support production needs.

This position serves as the day-to-day facility contact for supplier communication, purchase order management, expediting, receiving discrepancies, and supply issue escalation. The Buyer must be proactive, organized, and detail-oriented, with strong follow-through and professional communication to support plant execution, minimize material disruptions, and maintain accurate purchasing records.

Job Responsibilities:

Purchase Order Management

• Issue, confirm, and maintain purchase orders based on requirements and delivery dates provided by the Material Planner.
• Ensure PO accuracy, including quantities, pricing, lead times, delivery addresses, and supplier acknowledgment.
• Manage PO updates, reschedules, cancellations, and changes based on updated planning signals.
• Routinely review open purchase orders to ensure past-due, prior-month, partially received, short-shipped, or over-shipped orders are actively managed and resolved.
• Ensure unresolved prior-period PO issues are escalated appropriately before the start of a new reporting period.

Supplier Coordination & Follow-Up

• Serve as the day-to-day point of contact for assigned suppliers supporting the production facility.
• Expedite open orders to ensure on-time delivery aligned with production schedules.
• Monitor supplier confirmations and proactively flag delivery risks to the Material Planner, Production Planner.
• Resolve short-term supply disruptions, including shortages, late deliveries, damages, quality holds, and urgent material needs.
• Maintain accurate documentation of supplier communication, PO updates, and issue resolution history in the ERP system or approved tracking tools.

Receiving & Inbound Logistics

• Coordinate with the receiving and warehouse teams to ensure inbound shipments are expected, documented, and reconciled against purchase orders.
• Manage discrepancies between ordered and received quantities, including damages, short shipments, overages, and partial receipts.
• Support escalation of late loads, hot loads, and time-sensitive shipments needed to support production.
• Assist with manual creation of small shipments in TMS when required.
• Support customs/import documentation for international suppliers when applicable.

Inventory & Material Availability

• Monitor on-hand and on-order inventory for assigned materials to help prevent stock-outs, overstock situations, or production interruptions.
• Communicate urgent material shortages, supply risks, BOM-related updates, or material surpluses to the Material Planner and appropriate internal stakeholders.
• Support cycle count and physical inventory reconciliation activities when material discrepancies are identified.
• Partner with Production, Warehouse, Quality, and Planning to ensure materials are available and usable when needed.

Supplier Performance Monitoring

• Track and report key supplier performance metrics, including on-time delivery, fill rate, lead time adherence, and recurring service issues.
• Escalate chronic supplier performance concerns to leadership, corporate procurement, or the commodity team for further action.
• Maintain supplier contact information and facility-level purchasing details, including consignment, VMI, or other local supplier arrangements when applicable.

Pricing & Cost Management

• Ensure purchases are executed at contracted, quoted, or otherwise approved pricing.
• Review and resolve pricing discrepancies in partnership with Accounts Payable, suppliers, and internal stakeholders.
• Identify and communicate cost-saving or process improvement opportunities to leadership.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with the corporate Material Planner to align on material priorities, demand changes, delivery requirements, and supply constraints.
• Work with Production, Quality, Warehouse, Finance, and Planning to resolve material-related issues impacting plant execution.
• Coordinate with Accounts Payable to resolve invoice discrepancies tied to PO, receipt, pricing, or quantity mismatches.
• Provide excellent service to internal and external partners while supporting operational excellence, safety, and teamwork.

Documentation, Compliance & Reporting

• Maintain accurate purchasing records in the ERP system, including purchase orders, supplier confirmations, receipts, pricing updates, and supplier communications.
• Ensure purchasing activity complies with company policies, approved supplier lists, audit requirements, and food manufacturing standards.
• Generate or support reporting related to open POs, late materials, supplier performance, cost savings, inventory risks, and procurement activity.

Skills, Knowledge, & Abilities:

• Strong understanding of purchasing processes, MRP logic, lead times, supplier management, shipping processes, and inventory control.
• Experience working with ERP systems such as NetSuite, SAP, Oracle, or similar systems preferred.
• Strong Excel skills and ability to maintain accurate tracking tools and reports.
• Strong communication, follow-up, negotiation, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced production environment.
• High attention to detail and ability to identify risks before they impact production.
• Customer service mindset with the ability to support both internal and external partners professionally.

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in supply chain, Business, or related field preferred; equivalent experience will be considered.
• 2–5 years of purchasing, procurement, materials, logistics, or supply chain experience, preferably in a manufacturing or food production environment.
  
  

Work Environment:

• This role works in both an office setting and a food manufacturing facility. The position requires a significant amount of time working at a computer station, with occasional visits to various areas of the manufacturing floor.
• Required PPE must be worn while in all manufacturing areas.
• Moving parts and machinery are present in the plant.
• Noise levels may vary and can be higher in production areas.
  
  

Physical demands:

• Frequently sitting, standing, and walking.
• Occasional ability to lift up to 50 lbs.
• Ability to perform functions involving repetitive motion, grasping, lifting, pulling, pushing, reaching, kneeling, stooping, balancing, and climbing as needed.
• Noise levels will vary; higher noise levels exist while in the plant operations areas.