Sourcing & Procurement Specialist

About the Role 

The Sourcing Specialist is a hands-on, supplier-facing role within our global sourcing and procurement team, supporting a portfolio of suppliers spread across several countries and time zones. The initial focus is our consumables supply base - products that are consumed or ingested, and which therefore carry higher specification, traceability and compliance requirements than general merchandise. 

Day to day, you will manage supplier communication, prepare and analyze RFQs, drive new product development timelines, and keep projects moving. You will work closely with our category managers, and the shape of the role is expected to develop: as you establish yourself, there is real scope to take on greater commercial responsibility, including negotiation and elements of category ownership. We are looking for someone who wants that trajectory and will grow into it. 

You will spend a large part of your week in direct contact with factories - chasing samples, resolving specification questions, pushing on timelines, and building the working relationships that make a supply base responsive. 

Key Responsibilities 

Supplier Management & Communication 

• Act as a day-to-day point of contact for a portfolio of suppliers, maintaining momentum on open topics and holding suppliers to agreed commitments. 

• Build genuine working relationships with factory-side counterparts - commercial, technical and production. 

• Track supplier responsiveness, sample lead times, on-time delivery and open issues, and escalate risks early. 

• Prepare and support supplier business reviews: assemble the performance data, capture actions, and follow up until closure. 

• Support supplier onboarding - questionnaires, documentation, compliance packs, banking and agreement paperwork. 

RFQs & Competitive Sourcing 

• Build RFQ packages: specifications, drawings, packaging requirements, volumes, target costs and commercial terms. 

• Identify and qualify new and challenger suppliers through market research, directories, trade shows and referrals. 

• Manage the RFQ process end to end - issue, chase, clarify, and consolidate supplier responses to deadline. 

• Analyze quotations on a like-for-like basis, building comparison models that account for unit cost, tooling, MOQ, freight, duty and total landed cost. 

• Present clear, evidence-based sourcing recommendations, and support negotiations with cost breakdowns, benchmark data and should-cost inputs. 

• Take a lead role in negotiations as your experience and category knowledge develop. 

New Product Development & Project Management 

• Run NPD projects from brief to first production: manage the critical path, own the timeline, and chase every dependency. 

• Coordinate sample rounds between brand, quality and supplier - tracking versions, feedback and approvals. 

• Work with brand and creative colleagues on packaging artwork, dielines and labelling requirements, ensuring supplier feasibility. 

• Maintain project trackers with accurate status, owners and dates, and give a straight account of where projects genuinely stand. 

• Flag slippage early with a proposed recovery plan rather than a status update. 

Compliance & Quality Support 

• Collect and maintain supplier documentation: certificates of analysis, ingredient and nutritional declarations, facility registrations, audit reports and test certificates. 

• Support the compliance requirements that apply to consumable and regulated products - facility registration, labelling, product registration and import documentation - working with our Quality and Compliance colleagues. 

• Support lot traceability, shelf-life and ingredient-origin requirements across the supply base. 

• Coordinate third-party testing and inspection bookings, and follow up on corrective actions arising from quality issues. 

Data, Documentation & Reporting 

• Maintain accurate sourcing records: quotations, price lists, cost breakdowns, agreements and supplier contact data. 

• Keep the supplier and product data you generate clean, current and ready for use in our ERP and reporting. 

• Produce recurring reporting on RFQ pipeline, cost savings, NPD status and supplier performance. 

A Successful Team Member Will Have 

• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Business, Engineering, International Trade, or a related field. 

• 2 - 4 years of experience in sourcing, procurement, buying, supplier management, international trade or a comparable supplier-facing role. 

• Fluent, confident written and spoken English 

• Strong Excel / Google Sheets skills - comparison models, lookups and pivot tables - alongside confident, well-judged use of AI tools to speed up research, analysis and reporting. 

• Strong project management capability, running multiple supplier workstreams to deadline with clear ownership, accurate status and timely escalation. 

• Persistence and comfort with constructive commercial tension: able to chase a supplier for the fifth time and keep the relationship intact. 

• High attention to detail, particularly around specifications, documentation and compliance paperwork. 

• Self-starter who works well remotely with limited supervision, and communicates proactively rather than waiting to be asked. 

• The appetite and potential to grow into broader commercial and category responsibility over time. 

Highly Desirable 

• Experience with food safety and quality requirements for consumable products - human or pet - such as HACCP, GFSI/BRC, FDA or equivalent regimes. This is highly desirable rather than essential: we will consider strong candidates from other product categories who can demonstrably transfer. 

• Experience in supplements, food, personal care, or another regulated consumable category. 

• Experience working with manufacturers in Asia, or with suppliers in Latin America and South Asia. 

• Exposure to an ERP system (NetSuite or similar) and to e-commerce or Amazon-native businesses. 

• Additional languages - Spanish and Portuguese are particularly useful. 

What We Offer 

• A remote-first role with genuine ownership from the start, in a global procurement team spanning the US, UK, Europe and China. 

• Direct coaching from experienced category managers, and real scope to grow into broader commercial and category responsibility. 

• Exposure to the full product lifecycle across a portfolio of fast-growing consumer brands.