Sr. Food Category Manager

Trident Consulting is seeking a " Senior Food Category Manager” for one of our clients in California

Role: Senior Food Category Manager

Location: California - The selected candidate will be placed at the nearest company location within California.

Employment Type: Contract

Senior Food Category Manager | California

We are looking for an experienced Senior Food Category Manager to lead strategic sourcing, category management, supplier relationships, and procurement initiatives across food-related categories.

This is an excellent opportunity for a procurement professional with strong experience in foodservice, food distribution, hospitality, healthcare foodservice, higher education dining, or related commercial procurement.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute strategic category and sourcing strategies

• Lead supplier selection, negotiations, RFP/RFQ processes, and contract management

• Analyze market trends, pricing, spend, and supplier performance to identify savings opportunities

• Manage strategic supplier relationships and drive performance, quality, cost, and service improvements

• Partner with internal stakeholders to understand business requirements and develop effective sourcing solutions

• Drive cost optimization, risk mitigation, and supply continuity initiatives

• Develop category reports, KPIs, spend analysis, and executive-level recommendations

• Support procurement transformation and continuous improvement initiatives

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Finance, Operations, and Supply Chain

• Travel approximately 25% to locations across California

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, category management, supply chain, foodservice procurement, food distribution, hospitality procurement, or related commercial procurement

• Strong experience with supplier management, contract negotiations, and competitive sourcing

• Excellent analytical, negotiation, communication, and stakeholder-management skills

• Experience managing complex categories and significant spend portfolios

• Foodservice, higher education dining, healthcare foodservice, or food distribution experience is highly preferred

• Must be able to reside in California

About Trident Consulting

Trident Consulting is an award-winning staffing and consulting firm headquartered in San Ramon, CA. Since 2005, we've partnered with Fortune 500 and high-growth companies to deliver high-quality talent across technology, engineering, business operations, and professional services.

We specialize in contract, contract-to-hire, and direct hire placements, supporting roles across IT, data & analytics, cloud, cybersecurity, finance & accounting, HR, operations, and more. With a strong focus on hard-to-fill and niche positions, our global recruiting engine enables us to deliver speed, quality, and scale.