Sr. Buyer Rigid Plastic

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At Lactalis in the USA, we’re committed to providing meaningful opportunities for our people to learn, grow, and thrive—whether you’re just starting your journey with us or looking to take the next step in your career. From day one, we offer the tools and support to help you succeed.

As the world leader in dairy, Lactalis is a family-owned company with over 85,000 pragmatic and ambitious professionals across the globe. Each day, we’re proud to produce award-winning dairy products that bring people together.

In the US, we proudly offer an unrivaled house of beloved brands, including Galbani® Italian cheeses and ricotta, Président® specialty cheeses and butters, Kraft® natural and grated cheeses, Breakstone’s® cottage cheese, Cracker Barrel®, Black Diamond® cheddar, and Parmalat® milk. Our yogurt portfolio includes siggi’s®, Stonyfield Organic®, Brown Cow™, Oui®, Yoplait®, Go-Gurt®, :ratio®, Green Mountain Creamery®, and Mountain High®, along with a growing family of ethnic favorites like Karoun®, Gopi®, and Arz®.

At Lactalis, we live by our core values—Ambition, Engagement, and Simplicity. We foster a workplace where innovation thrives, diverse perspectives are celebrated, and everyone’s unique background and ideas are valued.

Even if you don’t meet every qualification, we encourage you to apply. We want to hear about your PASSION, your STORY, and how your EXPERTISE can help us shape the future of dairy.

From your PASSION to ours

Lactalis USA, part of the Lactalis family of companies, is currently hiring a Sr Buyer, Rigid Plastic based in Chicago, IL.

As a Senior Buyer, the role is responsible for developing and executing sourcing strategies for packaging categories, managing supplier relationships, negotiating commercial agreements, identifying cost reduction opportunities, and ensuring supply continuity across Lactalis North America. The role includes strategic sourcing, supplier performance management, market intelligence, risk mitigation, contract management, budget support, and continuous improvement initiatives. Additionally, the Senior Buyer will collaborate with Plant Operations, Packaging Development, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain and Global Procurement Team to align duties with the company's goals and values.

From your EXPERTISE to ours

Key responsibilities for this position include:

• Preparing bid proposals, negotiating all pricing contracts, analyzing and summarizing all responses and executing final contracts with suppliers.
• Responsible for communicating changes in purchasing policies, commercial agreements and procedures including recommended ordering patterns.
• Responsible for reviewing, approval and issuing of supplier pricing grids.
• Assist plant replenishes at all plant locations with any issues relating to supply. This encompasses suppliers, purchases and policies.
• Develop supplier relationships to optimize supplier quality and performance, including continuous improvement, innovation, and reduction in total cost of ownership to add value to our company. This will include leading supplier business reviews, reviewing supplier scorecards and the analysis of supplier non-conformance results. Acting as a resource to the plant buyers regarding non-conformance concerns to achieve full resolution.
• Develop and execute procedures to enable the plant locations to have consistent practices to enable the locations to consolidate purchases with our suppliers to take maximum advantage of available volume discounts.
• Responsible for accurate completion of monthly savings tracking reporting for savings, value analysis, and negotiation
• Assist the manager with the development of an annual saving target.
• Responsible for sourcing and qualifying suppliers in conjunction with QA and Packaging Development. This will include site visits.
• Responsible for compiling, organizing and maintaining all detailed supplier information used to evaluate new and existing suppliers.
• Analyze market and delivery conditions to determine present and future material availability and/or pricing.
• Work closely with all corporate purchasing employees to make sure that purchasing goals are well achieved
• Travel and / or extended or off work hours may be required

From your STORY to ours

Qualified applicants will contribute the following:

• Bachelor's degree is required.
• Degree in Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Procurement, or related field is preferred
• 5 years in purchasing, preferably packaging experience with food manufacturing company.
• Supplier Management (Procurement Cost Management, Procurement Negotiation strategy/ tools, Procurement Budgeting and controlling)

At Lactalis, we offer a comprehensive Total Rewards Program with a variety of affordable benefits and coverage options. We support insurance costs significantly, contribute generously to retirement plans, and offer Paid Time Off from day one. We are committed to your professional growth, providing training and development opportunities, including Education Reimbursement. Join us and grow your career.

Lactalis is an equal employment opportunity employer. We will not discriminate against applicants with regard to any legally-recognized basis including, but not limited to: veteran status, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, sexual orientation, and physical or mental disabilities. Further, any division of the Company that is an Affirmative Action Employer will comply with all related legal obligations.