Category Manager

Some people see a shelf of cider. You see a category waiting to grow.

Aston Manor has been making cider since 1983 — orchard to glass, from value favourites to award-winning premium. They're the UK's largest independently owned cider maker, still family-owned, and they've got the World Cider Awards haul to prove the quality isn't an accident.

Now they want someone to own the category story in front of their biggest retail customers.

That's you.

Why should you care?

You'll be the face of category at Aston Manor — internally and in front of the buyers. You'll turn Nielsen, IRI, Kantar and EPOS into range proposals that actually land, walk into range reviews with a plan people believe in, and watch category growth show up where you said it would.

You'll sit right in the middle of Account, Trade and Marketing, joining the dots so the good ideas don't die in a deck. It's insight, influence and execution — and when it works, it grows the whole category, not just one line.

Family-owned business. Long-term thinking. Room to actually make your mark.

What you'll actually be doing

• Owning category performance across a portfolio of retail accounts — and delivering real, incremental growth, not vanity numbers.
• Building the range proposals, presentations and activation plans that get customers to say yes
• Keeping full sight of range review calendars, EPOS trends, distribution gaps and every deadline that matters (miss one and you'll wish you hadn't)
• Co-creating joint category plans with Account and Trade — then making sure they translate into things that actually happen on shelf
• Turning market data into weekly, monthly and quarterly reports people genuinely read and use
• Judging what worked, what didn't, and telling Sales, Marketing and Trade what to do next

Who we're looking for

• You think in insight, not just numbers. You can take a pile of shopper data and turn it into a story a buyer buys into.
• You're comfortable in front of customers — you can present and, more importantly, influence. You're organised enough to juggle multiple accounts and review calendars without dropping the ball, and you care about getting the detail right.
• You're the kind of person who takes ownership rather than waiting to be told. Excel and PowerPoint are second nature. And you've got a full UK driving licence, because occasionally you'll need to be in the room, not on the call.

About your experience

You'll need grocery or FMCG category/insight experience using market and shopper data — IRI, Nielsen, Kantar, EPOS and real range review proposal work under your belt. At this level, that's genuinely essential, not a wish-list line. Ideally you will have worked on Top 4 grocers however we would consider customers outside of this and are encouraging Category Execs to apply for this role.

Ways of working: 1 day a week in Aston, Birmingham.

Salary: £47,500 plus £4800 car allowance and bonus

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