Sr Manager, Agricultural Operations

McCormick & Company, Inc., a global leader in the spice, flavor, and seasonings industry, is seeking a full-time Agricultural Operations Senior Manager based out of our facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The Senior Agricultural Operations Manager will be part of the McCormick Procurement Department and will have a dual reporting line to the Sustainable Procurement Director and the Plant Manager.

McCormick & Company, Incorporated is a global leader in flavor with approximately 14,000 employees worldwide. With over $6 billion in annual sales across 160 countries and territories, we manufacture, market, and distribute spices, seasoning mixes, condiments, and other flavorful products to the entire food industry including e-commerce, retail, food manufacturers and foodservice businesses. Our most popular brands include McCormick, French's, Frank's RedHot, Stubb's, OLD BAY, Lawry's, Zatarain's, Ducros, Vahiné, Cholula, Schwartz, Kamis, DaQiao, Club House, Aeroplane, and Gourmet Garden. Every day, no matter where or what you eat or drink, you can enjoy food flavored by McCormick. Our Purpose is "To Stand Together for the Future of Flavor and our Vision is "A World United by Flavor—where healthy, sustainable and delicious go hand in hand."

As a company recognized for its exceptional commitment to employees, McCormick offers a wide variety of benefits, programs, and services. Benefits include, but are not limited to, tuition assistance, medical, dental, vision, disability, group life insurance, 401(k), profit sharing, paid holidays, and vacations.

Position Overview

This is a new role at McCormick that is both strategic and operational in nature and requires significant cross-functional collaboration and project management. The role is responsible for leading agricultural operations of McCormick’s Frank’s RedHot Sauce and will have one direct report based in Chihuahua, Mexico to support on these activities. Primary capabilities the role will develop and activities it will oversee include leading direct grower contracting in accordance with the plan and budget, over-seeing all aspects of cultivation and grower performance management, and forecasting and overseeing each year’s harvest to ensure delivery to plan. This role will also play a critical role in strategic elements in the supply chain that will drive brand differentiation and competitive advantage to include varietal development and seed management.

Throughout the season, the primary focus of the role will be to maintain, develop, and manage grower relationships. The Senior Manager will be responsible for all aspects of grower contracting and monitoring the crop to ensure the crop hits each years’ contracted volumes and quality specifications. This includes leading on scouting, grower pricing recommendations, contract structuring and incentives, grower segmentation and performance management, and providing growers with feedback and recommendations to ensure compliance to all laws and regulations, and to ensure Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) are implemented and sustainability goals are met. The Senior Manager will develop a data collection and management framework and implementation strategy to collect analyze, and report any and all relevant data for crop performance management and improvement and market intelligence. The Sr. Manager will also develop and oversee implementation of a Farm-level Food Safety and Quality improvement plan and support the Sustainability team with implementation of programs that will sustainable certification, and regenerative agriculture trainings and audits across the grower base.

The Agricultural Operations Senior Manager will lead the crop forecasting and harvest readiness and planning in coordination with the plant, quality and logistics teams. This will include collaborating to ensure adequate and timely dispatch of trailers to growers to pick the crop and coordinate grower deliveries to the plant to ensure the receipt of fresh product at the processing plant and optimize operational efficiencies and cost.

Finally, the Senior Manager will play a strategic role in developing a long-term yield improvement strategy and implementation of that strategy to include: close coordination with seed breeder(s), R&D and University Research groups, and the Sustainability & Agriculture, R&D, Product Development, and Quality teams at McCormick to improve varietals and commercial scale of seed for yield optimization and integration of McCormick’s sustainability targets into the supply chain. This will also include providing strategic recommendations of sourcing regions, farms, and longer-term transformational efforts that will create competitive advantage for McCormick.

Key Responsibilities

• Grower Selection, Contracting, and Relationship Management
• Lead development of a framework / scorecard for grower selection and performance management evaluation and a year-round data collection plan and management system to ensure data driven decisions for grower selection and market insights to the business
• Develop an annually updated cost-to-grow model to inform MKC on competitive grower pricing including annual pricing from competing processors and crops in key sourcing regions to support annual budget development
• Lead cross functional team review and updates to MKC grower contract terms and conditions to manage business risks
• Develop annual grower acre allocations and contract acreage to meet volume demand and budget. Partner with Controller and Procurement to manage and communicate financing and payments to growers.
• Review all terms with growers including MKC Supplier Code of Conduct and sustainable agriculture policies to ensure comprehension and obtain signatures and maintain records of signed contracts
• Meet current and potential growers regularly to build trust & rapport and participate in local grower / community events
• Plan and organize regular grower education and appreciation events
• Crop Cultivation Compliance and Continuous Improvement
• Oversee distribution of seed and transplants to growers and ensure that all seed & seedlings distributed match acres planted
• Ensure fields are checked prior to planting for compliance with MKC standards and proper segregation for F1 fields
• Manage data collection on cultivation practices across MKC’s contracted grower base to include and not limited to: soil and water samples, pesticide records and schedules, fertilizer and other soil amendments, irrigation methods, certification status, labor practices, etc to ensure compliance and provide insights for recommendations to drive improved yields. Lead analysis and reporting back to corporate teams identifying meaningful insights and recommendations
• Oversee / manage Jr. Agricultural Operations Manager’s field visit schedule to ensure data collection, optimum crop management, and grower support
• Partner with McCormick’s Plant Science Program Manager and other research resources to leverage data collected to develop and implement a recommended IPM, fertilization, and watering schedule. Work with Jr. Manager to provide feedback to growers and remediation plans as necessary to ensure yields.
• Lead on establishment and implementation of trial and demonstration plots to facilitate learnings on performance of crops in different scenarios and opportunities for growers to learn.
• Work with growers and third-party consultants to ensure growers obtain appropriate certifications and improve practices to meet standards (Minimum future improvements to sustainable and regenerative)
• Support sustainability and marketing teams to meet growers and to gather stories to support PLP
• Crop Forecasting, Harvest Readiness, and Harvest Management
• Develop data collection plan and lead analysis of all relevant data points and KPIs for each grower to provide accurate yield forecasting to include and not limited to: plant dates and rates, germination rates, and dates of first flowering, 1st chili pod, an first red pod, pod size, no. pods per plant avg., and presence of pests, disease and weather damage.
• Lead development of a best-in-class yield forecasting model and lead cross-functional team review of the model: owning review cadences, data collection and analysis to support forecasting, and provide business with forecasts within /- 3% accuracy (or target TBD)
• Leverage internal MKC capabilities and tools to improve forecasting and recommend new systems and tools to drive continuous improvement
• Develop a training plan and oversee training of growers and their labor contractors on appropriate harvest methods to reduce and eliminate foreign material and ensure food safety and quality
• Lead / oversee testing of crop for pesticide compliance prior to harvest. Lead coordination of lab tests and feedback to growers.
• Coordinate harvest schedule and logistics to optimize delivery to mash facilities and maximum yield
• Ensure actual crop is delivered to facility and best quality
• Work w/internal team to develop improved harvesting / transition to mechanical harvesting to reduce risk, labor cost, and improve yield and efficiency
• Seed Management / Commercial Seed & Varietal Development Integration
• Manage MKC seed inventory: Test seeds for germination rates, moisture content, time to germination (ensure yield uniform fruiting)
• Collaborate with cross functional team to implement McCormick Variety & Seed Development Framework. Lead establishment of trial plots with appropriate growers and third-party partners providing the expertise and oversight for MKC
• Build foundation for development of commercial volumes of seed for global plan
• Coordinate seed for Quality lab testing: salmonella, total plate count, ASTA, Scovilles
• Develop potential business case for establishment of MKC owned and operated greenhouse for development of transplants (to stagger harvest and ensure better yield)
• Participate in relevant industry boards and trade associations
• Cultivate relationships w/R&D and University partners (NMSU especially) for program improvement thru field trials, soil health programs, and local presence / community development
  
  

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree Agriculture or Agriculture Business or Ag Tech.
• 10-15 years experience in contracting growers and close monitoring of cultivation and harvest activities and influencing growers to improve practices
• Fluency in Spanish and English is a MUST
• Extremely strong analytical and communication skills. Data collection tools, synthesis of complex data sets, and distillation of data to meaningful conclusions and ability to present to multiple internal and external stakeholders – tailoring communications appropriately is imperative. I.e. strong Microsoft Office (Excel and Powerpoint) skills critical.
• Knowledge of chile pepper cultivation for fresh harvest
• Knowledge, relationships, and experience in the U.S. southwest and Mexico growing regions
• Extremely strong self-initiative, and sense of ownership and urgency to deliver targets in budget
• Strong personal network & industry reputation and willingness to leverage this to maintain and develop new grower relationships, negotiate the best grower contract pricing for both parties, obtain the best ground, and build McCormick as the processor of choice in the region
• Innovation and ability to think outside the box. The ideal candidate will have a deep sense of respect for traditional farming, but also know how to lead growers to new ways of thinking and break down barriers to encourage new more sustainable farming practices and lead R&D activities to support these efforts.
• Ability to effectively communicate barriers and risks to corporate team and recommend solutions to mitigate and resolve issues
• Vision and strong people management skills: ability to help integrate new agricultural capabilities into the McCormick organization thru knowledge, expertise, and vision
• Demonstrated effective execution skills with little to no oversight and guidance needed
• Strong knowledge of and experience implementing agricultural certification schemes including FSA/SAI, Global GAAP
• Substantial experience in implementation of regenerative agriculture practices
  
  

McCormick & Company is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law.

As a general policy, McCormick does not offer employment visa sponsorships upon hire or in the future.