Innovation Controller - Mr Kipling and Cadbury Cakes

Innovation Controller - Mr Kipling & Cadbury Cakes

Based in St Albans/Hybrid WFH

Permanent

• Premier Foods is a business with strong momentum and ambitious plans to accelerate within the UK and Internationally. 

• Innovation is central to the company’s growth plans; we aim to deliver an incremental 10% of turnover every year from Innovation, across every category. That puts our Innovation leadership roles in a highly influential position within the business. 

• We are looking for a talented individual to lead Innovation in our Sweet Treats team, taking responsibility for delivery of an innovation pipeline across an exciting portfolio of brands including Mr Kipling & Cadbury. 

• We also see significant potential for our brands to innovate in Cake as well as enter new categories through innovation that plays on the brand’s strengths. 

• Premier Foods end-to-end organisation structure drives a culture of personal ownership. Innovation leaders take overall responsibility for long term strategy and pipeline, as well as driving projects through the Gate process to market launch. 

• We’re looking for a highly capable individual, able to take personal ownership and inspire a wider team to deliver big ideas, working in partnership with our NPD and manufacturing teams. We are looking for someone with a killer combination of strategic thinking, entrepreneurial spirit, commercial acumen, and the agility to move fast to make things happen!

What we need from you...

• 6-8+ years experience within an FMCG or other brand-led organisation – with some exposure to food & drink innovation. 

• Experience of smaller more entrepreneurial business environments alongside larger multi-national organisations is a plus. 

• Innovation experience encompassing strategy, business case development, cross-functional leadership, in-market delivery. 

• A track record of delivering successful big bet innovation to market with proven scale. 

• Strong bias for action, a high degree of personal accountability and an entrepreneurial spirit. 

• Desire to identify new ideas and ways of working, encouraging teams to think “outside the box” to make things happen. 

• Strong commercial orientation; comfortable analysing market data, digging under the surface to uncover insights, making compelling business recommendations, ensuring we can bring our biggest ideas to market in a profitable way. 

• A strong collaborator and leader of others within a cross-functional team – inspiring them to “go the extra mile”. 

• Personal Impact and Influence; proven ability to communicate clearly & concisely to win support from senior stakeholders. 

• Effective at prioritising, “putting first things first” to deliver a complex innovation programme

What you'll be doing....

• You will be responsible for building a pipeline of Innovation and delivering this successfully to market, within the Cake category and identifying other New Categories where our brands can play. 

• Innovation will be one of the major incremental growth drivers to Premier Foods business over the next few years, growing our brands’ penetration and usage beyond traditional occasions. It will also be critical to helping our brands achieve our growth ambitions. 

You will… 

• define the most attractive “where to play” spaces, considering scalability & consumer needs 

• develop “big bet” concept, product & packaging innovation that enables Premier Foods to win in those focus areas 

• lead innovation projects through the Gate process, aligning up to Exec level and securing the required resource 

• take accountability for the P&L on those innovation projects, ensuring they are scalable and profitable for the business 

• lead the wider cross-functional team to deliver success including R&D, Operations & Commercial stakeholders 

• be fully switched on to the external landscape & available technologies and apply this knowledge to our pipeline. 

• You’ll be part of the Sweet Treats team alongside Marketing, Insights and Commercial Planning. 

• You’ll partner closely with a wider cross-functional team that spans R&D, Operations, Sales and Finance. 

• You’ll have a direct report, who you will coach and inspire to deliver elements of the full pipeline. 

• You’ll step up to take the strategic & operational lead for key projects, energising the full organisation to move at pace to deliver big bets. 

What we offer you in return...?

• Competitive salary
• Car Allowance
• Bonus
• Up to 7.5% pension
• Private medical insurance
• Life assurance
• Wide range of online and in-house training
• Access to an employee discount scheme, with access to hundreds of nationwide retailers

Ready to apply...?

Click apply, submitting an up-to-date CV tailored to this opportunity. We look forward to hearing from you.

A great British food company 

Premier Foods is one of Britain’s biggest listed food companies, employing over 4,000 colleagues at 15 manufacturing sites and offices up and down the country.

Many of our brands have been part of UK life for more than a century and you’ll find them in 94% of British households.

At Premier foods we believe in inclusion, authenticity and individuality. We aim to ensure all existing and future colleagues are given equitable opportunities and are respected, valued and encouraged to bring their true authentic selves to work no matter who they are, what they look like, who they love or what they believe in. Our culture is one where everyone is welcome.