Technical Sales Manager – Beverages

Whether it’s canned cocktails, spiked sodas, bubble tea or CBD infused colas, the drinks industry is seeing some of the biggest innovations across all of the food & beverage sector right now. With UK consumers drinking around 14 billion litres of soft drinks alone last year, it’s a seriously competitive category to be in.

That’s why ingredients suppliers play a massive role. If the product doesn’t taste great and if it doesn’t perform how it should, consumers have too much choice to persist with it. Is that where you come in?

We’re looking for a Technical Sales Manager for one of the most innovative ingredients suppliers to the beverage sector in the UK market right now.

You’ll work with established brands as well as funky start-ups, using your knowledge of NPD to advise and guide your customer base in achieving the outcome they’re looking for – from maintaining an awesome flavour profile but with a reduced sugar level, to reformulating a whey protein sports drink to appeal to the vegan market. Projects will be varied and some of them might be really challenging – so you’ll be wearing an R&D hat as well as your commercial hat at times.

You’ll be supported by an R&D team with huge experience, as well as category insights that blow the competition away, as the company dedicates massive resources to its marketing team. Oh, and the role’s not come up because anyone’s left (why would they?!) – it’s come about due to an internal promotion.

If you like the sound of this, here’s the non-negotiables the company is looking to see from you:

• Degree-educated in Food Science or similar (although a master’s would be beneficial)
• 1+ year as an NPD/R&D Technologist, so you know the ins and outs of a lab and what’s entailed in the development process
• Then, this is important – experience of selling ingredients or flavours with a focus on the beverage sector (3+ years is needed here, with some good figures to show your commercial instinct)