Director of Procurement

Job Summary:

The Director of Procurement is responsible for leading the procurement function within Sopakco Packaging, supporting both the Mullins and Bennettsville, SC facilities. The role involves strategic sourcing and procurement across food ingredients, commodities, packaging, supplies, and external services. The position involves managing a procurement team that is accountable for continuity of supply, competitive total cost, supplier performance, inventory optimization, and procurement-driven margin improvement. Working closely with Operations, Commercial, R&D, Finance and Supply Chain, the Director will develop a high-performing supplier base and evolve procurement from transactional purchasing into a proactive, strategic business capability.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Sourcing & Cost Management

• Develop and execute sourcing strategies to ensure a consistent supply of ingredients, commodities, packaging, and other key spending categories.
• Manage the end-to-end procurement process, lead supplier negotiations, competitive bids, contracts, and commercial terms.
• Deliver measurable cost savings, cost avoidance, value engineering, and specification optimization.
• Monitor commodity and ingredient markets and provide forward-looking visibility to cost and supply changes.

Supplier Management & Supply Assurance:

• Identify and evaluate potential suppliers, develop a high-performing supplier base that meets cost, quality, service, food-safety, and capacity requirements.
• Build and maintain strong and strategic supplier relationships that provide access to innovation, market intelligence, capacity, and continuous improvement.
• Establish supplier scorecards and conduct regular business reviews with strategic suppliers.
• Identify supply risks and implement dual-source, alternative-source, and contingency strategies for critical materials.

Planning, S&OP, Inventory & Innovation:

• Work closely with other departments, including Operations and Planning, Commercial, R&D, QA and Finance, to align procurement activities with business objectives.
• Participate actively in S&OP, translating demand and production requirements into effective procurement plans.
• Partner with Planning and Operations to ensure material availability while optimizing inventory and working capital.
• Work with R&D and Commercial teams on new business, new products, reformulations, cost improvements, and commercialization.
• Engage suppliers as innovation partners to identify improved ingredients, packaging, processes, and technologies.
• Manage supplier lead times, MOQs, safety stocks, and purchasing parameters.
• Identify and reduce excess and obsolete raw material and packaging inventory.

Quality, Food Safety & Innovation

• Partner with Quality to ensure suppliers meet company, customer, regulatory, and food-safety requirements.
• Support supplier qualification, audits, specifications, corrective actions, and change-control processes.

Procurement Excellence

• Establish effective procurement policies, processes, approval controls, and sourcing disciplines.
• Leverage technology and data analytics to enhance procurement decision-making and reporting.
• Improve ERP/master-data accuracy and purchasing controls.
• Develop reporting and dashboards covering spending, savings, supplier performance, commodity exposure, inventory, and supply risk.
• Continuously improve procurement processes, analytics, and organizational capabilities.

Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop the procurement/purchasing team.
• Set clear goals, responsibilities, performance expectations and accountability, and provide regular feedback and development opportunities.
• Develop the organization from transactional purchasing toward strategic category and supplier management.
• Build strong cross-functional relationships across Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, Quality, R&D, Commercial, and senior leadership.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Business, Operations, Finance, Food Science, or related discipline.
• Minimum of 7-10 years of progressive procurement, sourcing, or supply-chain experience, including leadership responsibility.
• Strong experience within food manufacturing, CPG, ingredients, private label and/or co-manufacturing.
• Demonstrated experience sourcing food ingredients, commodities, and packaging.
• Strong negotiation skills and experience in managing supplier contracts
• Understanding of commodity markets, standard costing, PPV, inventory, working capital, and margin management.
• Experience working within FDA/USDA-regulated food manufacturing and GFSI-recognized food-safety systems preferred.
• Strong ERP/MRP analytics capabilities, analytical and commercial skills
• Excellent leadership and team management skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple priorities.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

The Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer and complies with all applicable federal and South Carolina employment laws. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable law.

EEO/M/F/D/VEVRAA