As our Head of Commercial (Food), you’ll play a pivotal role in shaping our future. As a key member of the Senior Retail Leadership Team, you’ll define the category strategies and lead the delivery of our broader Food Commercial Strategy, as well as delivering the sales and margin budgets of the Food team. You’ll help to ensure we continue to deliver outstanding value for our customers and members. You'll be responsible for driving profitable growth across a business with more than £1.6 billion in annual turnover, balancing commercial ambition with a customer-first mindset.

This is a high-impact leadership role where you'll help drive positive change across our Food Group, championing both business performance and cultural progression. Working closely with senior leaders across the organisation, you'll ensure the successful delivery of food contribution targets while creating an environment where collaboration, innovation and accountability thrive.

You'll lead and develop a high-performing team across a broad range of specialisms, inspiring them to achieve exceptional results and continuously raise standards.

At the heart of your approach will be a commitment to putting our stores, customers and Members first. You'll ensure that commercial activity is clear, simple to execute and rigorously reviewed, creating opportunities to learn, improve and strengthen our overall proposition.

Partnering closely with Marketing, you'll co-create customer and Member plans that bring our strategy to life and enhance engagement across our communities.

Working alongside the Format & Space team, you'll optimise both macro and micro space planning, leading decisions around ranging, secondary space and governance processes to ensure every store delivers the best possible shopping experience. You'll also ensure that all range and promotional changes are aligned with our format strategy, long-term vision and wider Food Strategy.

A key part of the role will be defining and delivering our Local Sourcing Strategy. From developing supplier and distributor partnerships to negotiating direct supplier contracts, you'll create efficient routes to market that strengthen our local offer, drive incremental sales and profit, and enhance our overall commercial proposition. You'll oversee and support media activation and joint business plans, ensuring delivery against strategic activation objectives while maintaining operational excellence.

You'll also be responsible for introducing and embedding critical new processes that improve the effectiveness of range reviews, pricing accuracy and commercial governance.

By owning our trading plan and leading key trading meetings, you'll drive improvements in the right-first-time delivery of promotional cycles, range reviews and major trading events, supporting the achievement of sales and EBITA targets.

We’re looking for an accomplished commercial leader with a passion for food retail, a sharp strategic mindset, and a proven ability to deliver sustainable category growth.

To succeed in this role, you’ll need to be an exceptional communicator who builds credibility quickly, influences at all levels, and leads high-performing teams to achieve ambitious commercial objectives. With strong leadership experience, you’ll champion collaboration, foster a culture of teamwork, and act as a role model who inspires others to deliver their best.

Ideally, you’ll bring extensive experience leading large-scale food retail commercial teams and will have a deep understanding of category dynamics, consumer behaviour, and emerging food retail and foodservice trends.

You’ll possess outstanding negotiation skills, commercial acumen, and a strong grasp of supplier economics, enabling you to confidently manage complex commercial agreements and deliver mutually beneficial outcomes. A track record of driving innovation, identifying growth opportunities, and translating market insight into successful category strategies is essential.

You’ll be highly analytical and customer-focused, using market intelligence and customer insights to shape decisions and ensure categories remain relevant, competitive, and profitable.

Preferably, you’ll have experience leading category management functions, developing compelling private label and branded strategies, and managing product lifecycles from concept through to launch and review.

In addition, you’ll have a solid understanding of the legislative and regulatory requirements within a food retail environment and be comfortable operating in a fast-paced, evolving market.

Most importantly, you will bring the vision, resilience, and commercial expertise needed to lead category performance, deliver exceptional customer value, and drive long-term business success.

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.

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.

Why join us?

The enthusiasm and commitment of our colleagues is what keeps our customers coming back, and every role plays an important part in making a real difference each day.

As a co-operative built on the values of equity, solidarity and community, we believe our colleagues should be recognised and rewarded for the contribution they make.

That's why we offer a competitive salary, generous holiday entitlement that increases with service, and a wide range of colleague benefits. From colleague discounts, recognition programmes and personalised learning and development opportunities to paid volunteering time and enhanced family friendly policies, we're committed to helping our colleagues feel valued, supported and able to thrive.

Wellbeing is a priority for us, and we provide a range of benefits and support designed to help colleagues look after their physical, mental and financial wellbeing. Whatever stage of life you're at, we're here to help you achieve your personal and professional goals.

To learn more about our rewards and benefits, please visit Rewards and benefits - Central Coop