The Category Manager – Pizza, Flour, Cornmeal & Corn Flour is responsible for driving the strategy, performance, development, and profitable growth of assigned product categories across applicable customers and channels.
This role leads category and portfolio management from marketplace insights and opportunity identification through product development, commercialization, launch, optimization, and rationalization. The Marketing Manager serves as the category subject matter expert and works closely with Sales, R&D, Operations, Finance, Demand Planning, Purchasing, Supply Chain, and other cross-functional partners to translate customer, consumer, market, competitive, and financial insights into actionable growth strategies.
The role balances strategic category leadership with hands-on execution, developing growth opportunities while ensuring existing businesses and customer programs are effectively managed.
Duties and Responsibilities
Category Strategy & Business Management
- Develop and execute category strategies and roadmaps for Pizza, Flour, Cornmeal, and Corn Flour.
- Serve as the subject matter expert and primary Marketing point of contact for assigned categories.
- Analyze category, customer, channel, and product performance using revenue, volume, margin, distribution, forecast, and market data.
- Translate performance into clear business implications, priorities, and recommended actions.
- Support annual operating plans, forecasts, budgets, and category business reviews.
- Identify business risks, performance gaps, and opportunities for profitable growth.
- Stay current on customer needs, competitive activity, marketplace trends, and relevant industry developments.
Portfolio & Innovation Management
- Manage products throughout the lifecycle, including development, commercialization, renovation, optimization, rationalization, and discontinuation.
- Evaluate portfolio and assortment performance and recommend where to protect, grow, renovate, reposition, consolidate, or exit.
- Build and prioritize an innovation pipeline based on customer needs, market insights, competitive opportunities, and company capabilities.
- Develop opportunity assessments and business cases considering strategic fit, customer relevance, financial potential, manufacturing feasibility, capacity, and risk.
- Partner with R&D and Operations to evaluate new products, reformulations, capabilities, and manufacturing solutions.
- Measure post-launch performance and recommend actions to optimize results.
Commercialization & Execution
- Lead commercialization of new, reformulated, renovated, and customer-specific products through established product lifecycle processes.
- Coordinate cross-functionally across formulation, costing, pricing, packaging, sourcing, specifications, forecasting, item setup, production readiness, and launch requirements.
- Establish clear project milestones, ownership, dependencies, decision points, and launch-readiness criteria.
- Identify project or commercialization risks early and work cross-functionally to develop solutions.
- Lead post-launch reviews and apply lessons learned to future initiatives.
Customer & Commercial Partnership
- Partner with Sales to identify and prioritize customer and channel growth opportunities.
- Develop customer-specific category stories, portfolio recommendations, concepts, proposals, and growth plans.
- Participate in customer meetings, category reviews, RFPs, presentations, and strategic planning as the Marketing/category lead.
- Support evaluation of both branded and customer/private-label opportunities where applicable.
- Balance customer requests with category strategy, profitability, manufacturing capability, portfolio complexity, and long-term business priorities.
- Equip Sales with clear category strategy, competitive context, product positioning, and recommended customer targets.
Pricing, Profitability & Financial Management
- Evaluate category and product financial performance and identify opportunities to improve revenue, margin, mix, and profitability.
- Partner with Sales, Finance, and Pricing on pricing strategies, customer opportunities, and business cases.
- Understand the financial implications of volume, pricing, mix, manufacturing route, and portfolio decisions.
- Support forecasting and demand planning for existing business, innovation, and customer opportunities.
- Make data-driven recommendations regarding investments and portfolio priorities.
Cross-Functional Leadership
- Lead cross-functional project teams across Marketing, Sales, R&D, Operations, Supply Chain, Purchasing, Finance, Quality, and Demand Planning.
- Establish clear roles, decisions, timelines, and accountability across complex initiatives.
- Influence stakeholders and drive decisions without direct authority.
- Communicate category priorities, risks, opportunities, and recommendations clearly to leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Build stronger category knowledge and ways of working across the broader organization.
Minimum Job Requirements
Education & Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, Finance, Economics, Food Science, or related field; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
- 4–7 years of experience in category management, brand/product marketing, commercialization, customer marketing, or a related discipline.
- Demonstrated experience taking products or initiatives from concept through commercialization and launch.
- Experience translating business, customer, consumer, and market data into actionable recommendations.
- Food manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, Retail, Foodservice, or National/Chain Account experience preferred.
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and business judgment.
- Working knowledge of pricing, margin, forecasting, portfolio management, and business-case development.
- Strong project-management and commercialization capabilities.
- Excellent written, verbal, presentation, and customer-facing communication skills.
- Ability to manage multiple priorities and complex cross-functional projects.
- Ability to influence stakeholders and drive decisions without formal authority.
- Strong commercial mindset with an understanding of the relationship between customer needs, operational capabilities, and profitable growth.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office; experience with SAP, PLM, syndicated data, or business-intelligence tools preferred.
Working Conditions & Physical Effort
- Typical office environment with occasional time in manufacturing facilities, customer locations, test kitchens, trade shows, or industry events.
- Prolonged periods of sitting and working on a computer.
- Must be able to occasionally lift and/or move up to 15 pounds, including product samples or marketing materials.
- Travel on an as-needed basis based on customer, plant, and business requirements.
Expectations
- Demonstrate and promote the Company’s Core Values.
- Operate with a high level of ownership, accountability, collaboration, and agility.
- Progress from project ownership toward broader business ownership, developing the ability to diagnose performance, recommend strategic and financial actions, build a growth pipeline, and influence resource decisions.
At C.H. Guenther, we value transparency in compensation. By providing the salary range for this role, we aim to promote fairness and help candidates make informed choices about their career. The salary range for this role is:
$90,750.00 - $145,200.00 USD
Actual compensation may vary based on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience, as well as geographic location.
C.H. Guenther & Son will never offer or pay a wage or salary that is not compliant with applicable local, state, or federal pay laws, including minimum salary thresholds.
We also offer a variety of benefits, including health and disability insurance, retirement savings options, flexible spending accounts, employee assistance programs, educational assistance, parental leave, paid time off, and company-paid holidays.
