Food Purchasing Specialist
Who We Are:
Food Lifeline believes that hunger doesn't have to happen, and our mission is to feed people experiencing hunger today and work to end hunger for tomorrow. Food Lifeline has the best nonprofit jobs. We are employee and family centric, and we are committed to promoting our staff as our most valuable asset. We are excited to share we are currently hiring for our Food Purchasing Specialist role.
Who You Are:
You care deeply about people experiencing hunger and hold them in the center of everything you do. You are a responsible leader in the management and coordination of food purchasing activities. You serve as a point of contact for all food resources purchasing-related activities for internal stakeholders and external partners. You have a deep understanding of food systems.
You are passionate about feeding communities across Western Washington.
You are an expert negotiator. You know about food safety handling procedures and regulations. You desire to maintain positive and meaningful relationships with vendors.
Most of all, you wake up in the morning eager to use your skills to build a movement to end hunger.
Ready to join Food Lifeline? Apply now!
To join our team as our Food Purchasing Specialist, please read the full job description and apply online on our website. Complete applications must include a resume and cover letter, and this posting will remain open until filled.
We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and seek to bring our values of diversity and inclusion to our hiring process. Beyond our commitment to non-discrimination, we encourage applications from candidates who can contribute to the diversity of our organization and who have lived experience of inequity.
Essential Functions:
- Determine and refine appropriate product line and purchase volumes through internal and external
- Seek out and maintain meaningful vendor relationships including pricing, volume, and timing negotiations.
- Use the inventory database and reporting tools to track the inventory levels of purchased product, reordering and adjusting inventory as necessary to maintain desired volume and
- Process food purchasing paperwork including invoices, purchase orders, and incoming product
- Monitor budgets and reconcile regularly with the Finance Department. Coordinate with Finance and Distribution departments to maintain a tracking system for food purchase revenue and expenses. Generate necessary internal reports to support strategic growth and program
- Establish and maintain positive relationships with vendors, working with them to obtain competitive bids on potential
- Establish and maintain an available standard inventory of purchase items based on research completed with agencies and Feeding America
- Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation of procedures for all of Food Lifeline's food purchasing
- Collaborate with Director of Food Resources, Operations staff, Agency Relations, Programs teams, and Inventory Management to ensure movement of product and accuracy of
- Establish a working knowledge of sources, quality, costs, demand and associated labor for potential purchase
- Maintains accurate documentation including, but not limited to: contact information, Ceres database, tracking spreadsheets, program guidelines and procedures, periodic grant reporting, and internal reports.
- Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation of procedures for all of Food Lifeline's procurement activities.
Secondary Functions:
- Maintains information on venders/potential
- Attends meetings with other departments and external partners as
- Operates from established and well known
- Performs work with moderate supervision.
- Decisions are made within prescribed operating guidelines and
- Budgetary accountability: Monitors purchasing expenditures against budgets and makes recommendations regarding the timing of
- Management of capital assets: not part of the position
- Responsibility for planning: Informally contributes to operational planning for the department.
- Other duties as assigned by supervisor.