Head of Packaging London, England
Job description
M&S Food is changing, and fast! We are undergoing one of the biggest transformations in retailing today to build a bigger, better, fresher food business.
From Percy Pig to the freshest M&S Select Farms produce, we grow, source, and develop our own products to give our customers family-ready food that's unbeatable on flavour and innovation.
We need motivated people who are ready to bring their whole self to work and give it their all in a fast-paced team committed to being the best. After all, this is not just food… This is M&S Food.
This is not just any job this is an M&S Head of Packaging Job! In this role you will deliver the packaging strategy. You will lead the team to ensure all M&S’s packaging is safe, legal, ethical, consistently functional. You will lead a programme of packaging innovation to put M&S Foods Packaging and the forefront and drive a transformation plan which has packaging solutions at its center that deliver for our customers and differentiate our product proposition whilst minimising our environmental impact. You will ensure we support our operation with accurate and timely data that maximises insight and minimises financial exposure.
Key accountabilities and measures
- Ability to lead and develop a successful team
- Relentless focus on quality
- Intellectually curious and analytical
- High energy and resilient
- Ability to work with external partners, NGOs and suppliers to deliver high quality results
- Ability to deliver results through team and effective business partnering with M&S Food category teams
- Ability to creatively solve problems, balance competing priorities and drive value through the team
- Excellent communication and influencing skills across internal and external partners at multiple levels of the business with the ability to challenge
- Capable of interpreting and transferring knowledge to shape future product development strategy
- Accountable for the delivering safe, legal, ethical, consistently functional and innovative packaging, print and hardware solutions that deliver for our customers as part of the M&S quality journey
- Drive a reduction in packaging related customer complaints in line with business targets and actively seek out ways to improve our packaging and resolve any issues in a timely manner
- Lead the team to provide packaging support and inspiration to the Trading teams for new lines being developed and ensure the team play their part in the delivery of product and packaging pathway process
- Benchmark M&S product against high street competitors ensuring a market leading position, building this into our packaging development strategy
- Accountable for robust and efficient packaging governance and compliance in line with our corporate guidelines legislation, corporate policy and external partners including internal and external reporting on specific targets and KPI’s
- Maintain packaging policy documents to ensure they make valuable contributions to both our suppliers and internal partners. Ensure they are accurate and up to date. Bring them to life through engaging training content
- Accountable for the delivery of the packaging transformation plan ensuring that we differentiate our product proposition whilst minimising our environmental impact.
- Deliver our Plan A KPI’s through fit for purpose customer and commercial focused packaging solutions.
- Drive packaging innovation to create magic in our products, a competitive difference and solve commercial issues in the business e.g. reducing food waste
- Drive opportunities and business KPIs in line with the product and packaging strategy
- Working with Design, Marketing and PR to identify and deliver accurate and robust customer focused packaging messages and information in line with the product and packaging strategy
- Maintain up to date knowledge and good working relationships with a number of external influential partners, NGO’s and centers of excellence to anticipate future data and tax requirements
- Lead the team to continuously improve our packaging data accuracy to drive insight and support legal requirements
- Engage with suppliers to ensure a right first-time attitude for packaging specifications
Key Skills
- Demonstrable experience in several fields working for an FMCG brand, a food retailer, a food manufacturer or a packaging manufacturer.
- Understanding of external regulatory framework and influential NGO targets: knowledge of UK and European packaging legislation and generating patents
- Experience of working with all the major packaging materials – plastic, glass, metal, paper, board
- Detailed understanding of materials, costs and how to utilise to value engineer packaging formats.
- Accountable for the overall delivery and maintenance of the Food Packaging Strategy across quality, transformation and data.
M&S is ready to push boundaries to lead the retail industry into a greener, speedier, more inspiring digital era. That’s why we’re revolutionising how we work and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. There’s never been a better time to be part of our team. Marks & Spencer aims to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make an immediate impact.
We are committed to an active Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy, which starts with our recruitment and selection process, and we are happy to talk flexible working.
If you consider yourself to require reasonable adjustments to any part of our recruitment process, we invite you to share those requirements with us when completing your application. We will make every effort to ensure your needs are met to provide a fair and transparent process of assessment.
