Procurement Specialist - Soft Commodities - Cocoa & Chocolate

Career opportunity at the Ice Cream Company

Life tastes better with ice cream

With 19,000 expert ice cream colleagues and iconic brands like Wall’s, Cornetto and Ben & Jerry’s, loved in 76 countries, we are the world’s largest Ice Cream company leading the industry.

What truly sets us apart is how we work.

We move fast and keep things simple. We turn ideas into action, trust people to take ownership, and work as one team to win together with integrity. Our culture is high-performance, collaborative and focused on getting things done.

We’re curious and ready for what’s next. We embrace digital, use data to make better decisions, and keep learning, including how AI can help us work smarter and serve consumers better.

The role

As Procurement Specialist – Soft Commodities, you will be responsible for supporting the development and implementation of the sourcing strategy for the European Cocoa & Chocolate portfolio, while also contributing to selected Global initiatives and cross-cluster topics. You will be the main point of contact for operational matters across the portfolio and work closely with internal and external stakeholders to ensure effective supplier management, contract execution, supply continuity, quality, sustainability, and resilience. In this role, you will help deliver procurement objectives and support value creation as part of the global Soft Commodities team.

What you'll be responsible for

Strategic Sourcing:

• Support the development and execution of the portfolio strategy in line with both short-term and long-term business objectives.
• Lead and contribute to portfolio initiatives such as alternate supplier/material approvals, resilience, market development, and complexity reduction to unlock gross margin and operational efficiency.
• Lead and support contract negotiations, including RFQ processes, e-tenders, data management, and in-depth analysis of supplier submissions.
• Build and manage a forward-looking savings and cash pipeline through market intelligence, strategic levers, and price risk management principles, ensuring cross-functional alignment and execution.

Supplier Compliance & Contract Management:

• Manage contract life cycle reporting, ensuring full contract coverage on time and in full, including management of purchase price variances.
• Ensure compliance with Supplier Quality and Responsible Sourcing policies while maintaining contracting, quality, and service standards.
• Identify and mitigate sourcing risks with cross-functional teams, ensuring high service levels to sourcing units.

Commodity Price Risk Management:

• Partner with Commodity Risk Management to define and deploy optimal hedging strategies.
• Collaborate with Finance and Strategy & Insight teams to deliver accurate price forecasts, market analysis, and budgeting inputs.
• Integrate local market intelligence into contracting cover strategies and supplier flows.
• Ensure full hedge compliance across categories and supplier contracts.

Innovation & Sustainable Sourcing:

• Enable innovation through close collaboration with R&D, leveraging supplier intelligence, capacity insights, and market trends.
• Support the development and execution of partnerships and projects required to meet sustainability targets.
• Lead all reporting and monitoring requirements for Cocoa sustainability programs and initiatives.

We're looking for someone who

• Has a minimum bachelor’s degree.
• Has more than 3 years’ experience in Procurement.
• Is fluent in English.
• Is a self-starter with strong accountability, responsibility, and leadership skills.
• Has experience in strategic sourcing development and contract negotiations.
• Has very strong communication and analytical skills, including data and information analysis and presentation.
• Can read markets, gain insights, and convey findings along with recommendations to the business.
• Is comfortable with systems such as SAP CLM and Velocity and learns new systems quickly.
• Has experience in market forecasting, operations, and supply chain dynamics.
• Is able to build relationships with people across the business internally and externally.

Why join us?

This is a place for people who are passionate about ice cream and are growth obsessed - both for the business and for themselves. People who act like an owner and drive our business end-to-end. People who are driven by success to deliver more than we ever thought we could!

You’ll thrive here if you value an inclusive culture, with low ego and hierarchy - and if you’re excited to continuously learn and challenge how we work, using digital, data, and new thinking to push us forward.

• Roles with real accountability and visible impact.
• Freedom to move fast, experiment, and challenge how things are done.
• Continuous learning and development as the business grows.
• Reward linked to performance and contribution.

Your career here is shaped by what you deliver, as you work across functions and markets and grow with the business.