The Opportunity
Black Label Creations is a rapidly growing and disruptive private label supplier of finished nutritional supplements. We partner with brands to deliver premium and bespoke products, from concept through to launch, offering finished units across a wide variety of nutritional products.
As part of our continued growth, we are seeking a Procurement & Costing Manager to lead and elevate our procurement and costing functions. This is a hands on leadership role, overseeing the Procurement team and taking responsibility for strategic cost control, supplier relationships, budgeting, stock management and supplier contracts.
Key Responsibilities
The Procurement & Costing Manager will be responsible for:
Costing & Financial Management
· Review and approve all product costings and supplier quotes prepared by the procurement team, ensuring accuracy, compliance with specifications, and alignment with commercial targets.
· Perform demand planning and forecasting to anticipate material needs and cost trends, to avoid stockouts or overstock, and to protect margins.
· Monitor commodity and market price trends to anticipate cost risks or opportunities.
Strategic Procurement & Supplier Management
· Develop and execute procurement strategies for raw ingredients (especially dry powders), packaging, components, and any other materials or services needed across the product life cycle.
· Manage and build strong, long-term relationships with suppliers; evaluate new suppliers to ensure quality, reliability, cost-competitiveness, and alignment with BLC's values (e.g. regulatory compliance, sustainability).
· Lead negotiation of supplier contracts, terms, and pricing to deliver best possible cost, quality, lead time and payment terms.
· Oversee import/export logistics and shipping terms for materials and finished goods. Ensure best value in freight and shipping, customs, duties, and related costs.
Operations & Process Improvement
· Manage & mentor the procurement team, setting performance targets (cost saving, supplier performance, lead times etc.).
· Implement, review and improve procurement and costing processes: purchase order issuance, invoice reconciliation, alignment with budgeting, traceability of costs.
· Track and manage stock, wastage, quality issues; put in place measures to minimise waste or cost leakage.
· Ensure procurement and costing systems are leveraged fully; suggest and implement enhancements or automation where possible.
Reporting, Budgeting & Stakeholder Engagement
· Produce regular reports for senior management on procurement spend, cost savings, forecasting vs actuals.
· Align procurement spend and costing with company budgets and financial goals.
· Act as a strategic partner with cross-functional teams: Supply Chain, NPD, Technical, Quality, etc. Contribute commercial insight to product decisions (e.g. formulation, packaging design) to ensure cost-effective choices.
About You: Skills & Experience
We're looking for someone with:
· Proven experience (6+ years) in procurement or buying roles, ideally in the food, food supplements, nutraceuticals, or related FMCG industries.
· Experience in checking, validating, and approving cost models to ensure accuracy and consistency across multiple product lines.
· Confidence in providing final authorisation of costs and being accountable for commercial accuracy.
· Demonstrable supplier negotiation experience: contracts, pricing, shipping/freight terms.
· Familiarity with import/export logistics, duties, compliance.
· Experience managing demand forecasting, inventory planning, reduction of waste or short-dated stock.
· Strong analytical skills; adept at working with numbers, Excel, data analysis; comfortable with financial modelling.
· Leadership experience, able to mentor, manage, and develop more junior procurement staff.
· Excellent communication skills; able to work cross-functionally and influence stakeholders.
· Highly organised; good multi-tasker; able to manage competing priorities under pressure.
· Strong IT skills; experience with ERP/procurement software; ideally also comfortable with reporting tools and dashboards.
· Outstanding attention to detail, but also able to see strategic, long-term opportunities.
Education & Qualifications
· Bachelor's degree in a relevant field such as Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Finance, or related discipline.
· Continuous professional development, especially related to procurement, cost engineering, supply chain risk management.
The role is office based in Frimley, England.
If this sounds like you and you're excited to help Black Label Creations scale efficiently while maintaining high product quality and commercial success, we'd love to hear from you.