Product Assistant 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 a M&S Product Assistant job! Your role will be to assist the product development team in formulating, directing and delivering commercial product development for customers in line with category and project plans and business strategy.
Key accountabilities and measures
- Examine the marketplace and competition to keep up to date with trends in foods, lifestyle, packaging and ingredients that influence the customer, market and potential product direction supported with regular reporting to the team
- Understanding of M&S and competitor product categories and the products within them - covering existing M&S range and the retail competition
- Assist in delivering the stage gate process, managing all product samples, both incoming and outgoing, product information for photographic shoots, quality benchmarking, supplier meetings, press requests, travel tests and product sampling
- Collate product information, samples and build product displays to support all internal events, including category reviews and product forums, and all external events, including conferences and press shows.
- Support the team in creating and coordinating presentations, accurate and timely management information, range planning documents and competitor & directional insight.
- Handle, coordinate and report accurate management information for internal and external benchmarking, tried and tested, press coverage and awards. Maintain up to date information for Trading area and present findings every quarter.
- Deliver accurate product and category information relating to product and project requirements in a timely manner to multi-channel teams.
- Co-ordinate product nominations for all food awards, Press and Marketing opportunities across the Trading area
- Fully conversant with M&S systems to ensure new products are delivered against the relevant critical paths.
- Continue to develop a direct and positive relationship with partners, working collaboratively to deliver results
You will be highly organised at handling sources of information, systems and processes. You will have good IT skills in PowerPoint, Excel and Word. You are able to use automated NPD systems. You have a positive, proactive and motivated mindset.
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.
