This is a unique opportunity to shape and lead our food partnership strategy, driving the development of innovative collaborations that enhance our customer proposition and deliver sustainable commercial growth.

As the strategic lead for food partnerships, you'll be accountable for the end-to-end management, performance and future direction of a diverse portfolio of third-party relationships, identifying emerging market trends and opportunities that support the evolution of our food retail offer.

Working closely with Commercial Category teams and key stakeholders across the business, you’ll develop and implement partnership strategies that deliver strong sales, margin and customer outcomes across areas such as eCommerce, food service, lottery, and parcels.

You'll play a pivotal role in ensuring we maximise the value of every partnership, creating propositions that strengthen our stores, support our communities and differentiate us in an increasingly competitive retail landscape.

As the main contact for commercial partners, you’ll lead the full partnership life-cycle, from identifying and securing new opportunities through negotiation, contract management, implementation and ongoing performance review.

Collaborating with wider teams across the Society, you’ll ensure partnerships are commercially successful, operationally effective and fully aligned to our Food strategy.

 This role requires a commercially astute and forward-thinking leader who can anticipate future trends, leverage market insight and data to inform decision-making, and build strong relationships both internally and externally.

You'll be responsible for identifying opportunities to optimise existing partnerships, exploring new propositions that enhance the customer experience, and ensuring all agreements deliver measurable value for our members, customers and the wider Society.

We’re looking for an experienced retail management professional who has successfully managed partnerships and built strong relationships with a range of delivery partners.

You’ll have a proven track record of identifying new trading opportunities and using commercial insight to drive growth and maximise value.

A confident communicator and natural leader, you’ll bring excellent relationship-building, negotiation and influencing skills. Collaboration will be at the heart of your approach, enabling you to work effectively with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to achieve shared objectives.

You’ll possess strong commercial acumen, with experience of contract development, negotiation and partnership management. You’ll be comfortable planning for future opportunities, forecasting strategic change and assessing the financial implications of partnership agreements to support informed decision-making.

Ideally, you’ll also have experience of compliance and contract management, alongside expertise in delivering projects.

Knowledge of change leadership, new business development, customer insight and data interpretation would be highly advantageous, helping you to identify opportunities and shape successful partnership strategies.

Everyone is welcome here We’re happy to make reasonable adjustments so that all our candidates can show us how they’ll perform their role. There is a section in the application form where you can provide any additional information. Please use this section to include any reasonable adjustments you need, and we’ll do our best to support you through our recruitment process

What benefits are available to you?

In addition to our competitive salaries, our colleagues also benefit from:

Reward and Benefits

• Fantastic colleague discount - Reward ££’s and discounts across our Retail and Funeral businesses.
• Retail discounts- our hub offers colleagues access to hundreds of exclusive retail discounts, savings on days out and holiday discounts.
• Colleague Dividend- We pay a share of our profits to eligible colleagues as a thank you for their contribution to our success.
• Colleague recognition- we celebrate our colleague’s achievements both personally and professionally
• Personalised learning and development- with easy access to a wide range of training programmes
• Paid time for volunteering- we encourage our colleagues to spend three days per year taking part in volunteering, fully paid for by us.
• Enhanced family friendly policies- to help you feel fully supported during any significant life events.

   

  Wellbeing

• Annual health check kit and virtual GP – Finger prick blood test kit, that is sent to Square Healthcare for your personal healthcare report, and access to a virtual GP 7 days a week 8am to 8pm for you and your family.
• Colleague assistance programme – to support you and your family when you need it the most.
• Healthcare Cashplan- your wellbeing is important, so you’ve got the opportunity to contribute into a voluntary plan that helps pay towards a range of healthcare expenses.
• Company sick pay – We offer company sick pay to colleagues so that you can focus on getting better and returning to work in full health.
• Life Assurance- after an initial qualifying period, you’ll get free life assurance cover, that pays your nominated beneficiary if you die while you’re working for us.
• We’ve got you – our colleague wellbeing campaign, making wellbeing benefits and resources accessible and relevant to the role that you do.
• Give as you earn- helping you support charities which mean something to you.

   

  Financial Wellbeing

• iTrent Financial Wellbeing (Wagestream)- offers something for all our colleagues, whether you want to track your finances, save some money, or access up to 50% of your earned pay flexibly in a way that suits you.
• The Money Co-op – Free access to support all aspects of your financial wellbeing, such as savings and loans at competitive rates.
• Salary Sacrifice schemes:
  • Electric Vehicle scheme – Option to purchase your EV through salary sacrifice
  • Share Incentive Plan (SIP) – option to buy shares within the Society, where they will attract interest and £10 worth of matching shares.
  • Cycle to Work scheme – Option to purchase your bicycle and accessories through salary sacrifice
  • Holiday buy- colleagues can buy up to a week extra of annual leave each year
• Company Pension- you can access a company pension scheme with us as well as access to Pension wellbeing information.
• Nous – smart assistant that can save you money and time on managing your household bills.

To find out more about all of these plus many more reasons to join us, please visit Rewards and benefits - Central Coop (careers.coop)

OurCoop is the UK’s largest independent co-operative Society, with more than one million Members and 13,000 colleagues operating in communities nationwide. It was formed by bringing together Central Co-op, The Midcounties Co-operative and Chelmsford Star Co-op to create a stronger, member-owned organisation rooted in shared co-operative values.

The Society trades nationally through its family of businesses while remaining deeply rooted in local communities. Its footprint spans Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Bedfordshire in the South and West; the Midlands including Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Northamptonshire; the North including Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Yorkshire; and the East of England, including Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.

OurCoop and its family of businesses are trading names of Central England Co-operative Limited.