Senior Buyer

About the role

The Senior Buyer, Contracted Ingredients leads procurement of the company's highest-volume, highest-dollar raw materials, including proteins, flours, oils, and other key ingredients, across two production locations. This role owns category strategy, supplier negotiations, contract management, and day-to-day purchasing execution for assigned categories. The Senior Buyer is also accountable for inventory management, end-of-month reconciliation, and the financial accuracy of their raw material positions. Working closely with R&D, Production, Logistics, QA, and Finance, this role applies data-driven analysis and commodity market.

Responsibilities

• Own and execute procurement strategy for assigned categories.
• Source, negotiate, and execute contracts for all assigned materials across both production locations.
• Develop and maintain a forward-looking buying calendar.
• Actively pursue price reduction, cost avoidance, and total cost of ownership improvements.
• Monitor commodity markets daily.
• Support SKU rationalization initiatives by evaluating ingredient.
• Travel to relevant tradeshows and supplier sites as needed (approximately 10% travel).
• Place purchase orders and transfer orders daily in Aptean ERP.
• Confirm order acknowledgments, delivery windows, and pricing accuracy with suppliers.
• Coordinate inbound delivery timing with the logistics and production teams.
• Manage order amendments, cancellations, and expedites as supply or demand conditions change.
• Review on-hand inventory levels daily across both facilities.
• Maintain raw material safety stock levels by category.
• Monitor and manage slow-moving, aged, or at-risk inventory.
• Use data analytics and ERP reporting to balance physical inventory levels.
• Coordinate with the warehouse and production teams on cycle counts, physical inventory discrepancies, and receiving accuracy.
• Lead end-of-month close activities for all assigned raw material categories.
• Reconcile purchase orders against invoices and receipts to ensure accurate cost of goods posting in Aptean ERP.
• Investigate and resolve price variances, quantity discrepancies, and invoice disputes.
• Provide monthly category spend reports, contract utilization summaries, and cost vs. forecast variance analysis.
• Support annual budget preparation by providing historical spend data, forward price projections, and category-level cost assumptions.
• Raw material in-stock rate versus production schedule (target: 100%).
• Cost savings and cost avoidance versus budget by category.
• Contract coverage rate for assigned categories.
• Aged and excess inventory value as a percentage of total raw material inventory.

Requirements

• Minimum 10 years of experience in ingredient buying, commodity procurement.
• Deep category knowledge in at least one of the following: proteins, flours, or oils, with demonstrated ability to negotiate contracts and manage commodity price exposure.
• Proficiency with ERP systems for purchasing, inventory management, and financial reconciliation (Aptean experience a plus).
• Strong Excel skills including pivot tables, VLOOKUP, and data modeling for spend and inventory analysis.
• Experience supporting multi-site procurement and inventory management.
• Familiarity with import procurement, landed cost calculations, and tariff management.
• Background in Asian cuisine ingredients or frozen food manufacturing.
• Experience collaborating with R&D on new product development and ingredient qualification.
• Knowledge of food safety regulations and supplier qualification processes (SQF, BRC, or similar).

Schedule

Onsite role based in Bay Shore, NY, five days per week. Approximately 10% travel for tradeshows, supplier visits, and multi-site coordination.