Purchasing Coordinator

Role Summary

We are creating a Purchasing Coordinator role to take over the day-to-day purchasing and inventory work currently handled by our QA Manager, so she can focus fully on quality assurance. This is a hands-on position that moves between the warehouse floor and the office: ordering ingredients, tracking inventory, and leading receiving in the early days, with growing responsibility over time for vendor relationships and price negotiation.

Key Responsibilities

• Place ingredient and packaging orders with vendors twice a week
• Conduct a physical inventory count of products twice a week
• Lead the receiving of incoming ingredient deliveries, checking quantities and quality against purchase orders
• Load outgoing pallet orders when customers come for pickup
• Put away pallets in the freezer and log activity in the container sheet
• Log lot numbers and label incoming ingredients
• Put away incoming ingredients following First In, First Out (FIFO) rotation
• Operate a forklift to receive and stage incoming shipments (training provided)
• Keep purchasing and inventory records accurate and up to date
• Coordinate with production and QA to align orders with actual needs
• Progressively take on analysis of purchasing prices and cost trends by ingredient and vendor
• Grow into being the main point of contact for all vendors
• Push for better pricing and terms as vendor relationships mature

Candidate Profile

• Prior experience in purchasing, inventory, receiving, or warehouse work is a plus, ideally in food or manufacturing
• Comfortable working both on the production floor and in an office setting
• Bilingual English/Spanish ideal, to communicate with both vendors and the production floor team
• Forklift certification is a plus; we provide training if you don't have it yet
• Organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable with basic computer tools (Excel, email, ordering systems)
• Confident communicator who can eventually represent the company with vendors
• Analytical mindset with an interest in growing into cost analysis and negotiation
• Reliable, proactive, and able to manage multiple priorities

Pay

From $19.00 per hour