packaging engineer Cheadle, North West England, England
Job description
Join our dynamic team at Pets at Home, the UKs leading pet care business, as a Senior Packaging Technologist, and make a significant impact on our packaging strategy.
At Pets at Home, we are committed to providing the best advice, products, and care for pets and their owners. With over 450 stores, 310 Groom Rooms, and 440 First Opinion Vet Practices, we offer a fast-paced, innovative, and fun work environment where our people make a real difference. This is your chance to work for an award-winning company that puts people at the heart of everything we do.
About the role
As a Senior Packaging Technologist, you will be a key member of our team and you will contribute to the development of a three-year packaging strategy, providing support as needed for the brand and packaging manager.
In this role, we can offer hybrid working from our Support Office in Handforth (Cheshire).
Your primary responsibility will be ensuring the timely and effective delivery of packaging projects under your purview. From concept to launch, you will take ownership of packaging, aligning with the Critical Path Alignment (CPA) process to deliver on time and in full.
Success in this role will be measured by your ability to develop packaging concepts that are both fit for purpose and aligned with our business strategy in terms of innovation, quality and sustainability. This will require close collaboration with internal teams, including New Product Development (NPD) and Product Technologists, as well as a deep understanding of supplier processes, especially manufacturers and printers.
To excel in this role, you must maintain an up-to-date, comprehensive and detailed knowledge of the competitor landscape in your assigned categories. Your expertise in effective benchmarking will enable you to defend and enhance Pets at Home propositions.
Key responsibilities will include:
- Developing packaging concepts aligned with agreed Business Sign off Meeting (BSM) targets
- Providing detailed packaging briefs to chosen suppliers, ensuring operational approval
- Ensuring accuracy of cutter guides, substrate, material type, and finish across categories
- Ensuring packaging functionality meets optimized shelf life and transit requirements
- Conducting regular market and competitor analysis, maintaining a benchmarking portfolio
- Overseeing packaging trials onsite at suppliers
- Approving packaging at first delivery to suppliers
- Maintaining all packaging specifications
- Leading cost-saving and packaging optimisation projects
- Conducting post-launch reviews to analyse packaging performance and suitability
- Developing packaging in line with sustainability and legislative targets
- Arranging necessary audits at suppliers to ensure adherence to standards
- Working within required KPIs for your area
- Identifying training needs and incorporating them into the annual plan
About you
- Experience in a packaging technology role
- Ideally, a degree or equivalent qualifications in packaging or a related field
- Experience in managing packaging projects across supply chains
- Knowledge of end-to-end manufacturing processes, from raw materials to packaging and print delivery
- Proficiency in spreadsheet trackers and project management tools
- Ability to work flexibly and efficiently in a fast-paced environment
- Capable of providing ongoing coaching and support to internal and external stakeholders
- Budget control acumen
- A blue sky/innovative thinker
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Strong cross-departmental collaboration abilities
- A team player with a focus on achieving results
- Clear decision-making and accountability
- Highly organized with excellent multitasking abilities
- Detail-oriented with a proactive approach to overcoming barriers to progress
Our diversity and inclusion vision is that everyone is welcome and feels part of our group. If you think you’re a good match to what we are looking for, and you share our belief that together ‘we’re better with pets’, we’d like to hear from you, whatever your background or circumstances.
About our Purpose
At Pets at Home, we have an ambitious plan, to become “The Best Pet Care Business in the world” and a key part of delivering this in a sustainable way will be our most cherished assets: our People and our Culture. We are a business built on strong values and behaviours which guide everything we do. These are our foundations which will help us to deliver our better world pledge to create a better world for pets and the people who love them.
