Call for Sales and Marketing Manager, Food Industry (Niche Lebanese Products)

1. GENERTAL INFORMATION

Starting Date is May 1, 2021

Duration: 1 year

II.       SUMMARY OF ASSIGNMENT

The Cooperative for Development and Agro-Food Processing in Akkar and Dennieh S.A.R.L. is a Farmers and Food Processing Cooperative hosted by Safadi Rural Development Centre in the village of Deir Dalloum (DD) in Akkar.

The Sales and Marketing Manager (SMM) will determine the best strategies and action plans to widen the outreach of the Khayrat brand, the brand under which the DD Cooperative sell its products. Khayrat is a niche Lebanese specialty food brand whose natural products responds to a renewed demand for good tasting authentic Lebanese traditional items.

Besides Khayrat, Safadi Foundation is managing a project named Ayadi that has a central kitchen for catering that targets NGOs, and other clients. The Sales and Marketing Manager will also support the Ayadi project in its sales and marketing needs as the Key Tasks below details.

Key Tasks Requested:                                                                                                   

For Khayrat Brand

1. Initiate and implement marketing and sales strategy for the Khayrat brand that helps in increasing the sales on three tracks;
   1. the export market, by reaching exporters, international buyers, and distributers,
   2. local market by reaching out to specialty food outlets, supermarkets, and other, and
   3. directly to the consumers that prefer to shop online, or via online sales platforms.
2. Conduct market research to identify opportunities for promotion and growth.
3. Investigate and start online sales and payments.
4. Collaborate with the cooperative managers in preparing budgets and monitoring expenses
5. Maintain all relevant records (data base of clients, contacts etc).
6. Planning interaction with customers and obtaining regular feedback
7. Filing and maintain documents up-to-date and keep record of all feedback received from clients
8. Achieve targeted prices, and decide with other managers any modification in prices seen needed.
9. Take the needed action for achieving assigned sales targets
10. Analyzing customer issues as per feedback and passing it to the concerned (cooperative manager, Food technicality officer etc).
11. Managing sales management information and a customer segment database
12. Follow up with the clients and evaluate all service requests, customer suggestions and complaints
13. Interacting and collection customer inputs
14. Send necessary reports to Management
15. Work on building a customer base and formulate systems and procedures to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty
16. Organize and attend marketing activities or events to raise brand awareness
17. Plan and suggest to managers advertising and promotional campaigns for products or services on a variety of media (social, print etc.)
18. Liaise with stakeholders, Akkar Food Processing Cooperative (the main supplier of Khayrat Items).

For Ayadi Catering Services

1. Put a marketing action plan that helps Ayadi to reach; i) local and international NGOs that use carters for their coffee and lunch breaks (when Country opens up), ii) households that love to support the Ayadi project by buying its generously prepared food items (baked products, pastry, and ready to eat cooked food), and iii) any other prospective buyers that look for good quality homemade style food items done under high hygienic and HACCP standards.
2. Follow up on the sales and marketing plans for the Ayadi, suggest new items, provide feedback to the project manager on market needs and on new possible items in high demand.
3. Do other tasks seen needed to boost sales and impact on Ayadi beneficiaries (unemployed women and youth).

Carry out other duties as seen needed in sales and marketing

III.  BACKGROUND

Khayrat

Deir Dalloum Cooperative mission to is to help farmers and food processors in the Akkar and Dennieh regions by earning a position in consumers’ niche Lebanese ready to eat, processed, and other specialty food market under the brand Khayrat.

The Products of Khayart include but not limited to:

Khayrat Pomegranate Molasses, Dried Jews Mellow, Orange Blossom Water Khayrat Rose Water, Jams, Kishk, pickled olives, honey, thyme, and other.  

The Cooperative gets its supplies of raw material from Lebanese farmers based on specialties and quality and intends to use Geographic Indicator (GI) of those products in the near future.

Few months ago, and to advance sales, the cooperative opened an outlet store in Tripoli under the brand name Khayrat. However, and besides the friends and store’s clients, the cooperative management sees that there is a potential market segments at three categories: 1) the large metropolitan cities in the Gulf region, France, Canada, Australia, African countries, and the USA. Lebanese food is marking in those regions as specialty food stores can be found all over in these areas, 2) Inside Lebanon, at grade A grocery stores, specialty food stores, and gift shops that open near large upper income locations, similar to the Khayrat outlet store in Tripoli. Such high end stores carry all of the highly commercialized grocery and general merchandise, but they also carry some innovative products in terms of packaging, processing, food blends, twists and recipes, and 3) the food enthusiasts that admire authentic high quality food but like to shop online using electronic platforms or applications without having to call or talk to anyone.  

Ayadi Baking and Catering Project

Ayadi helps underprivileged youth and women to access an income by acquiring the needed technical skills in cooking, baking and pastry making and then by helping them work at the Ayadi Central Kitchen in Tripoli. The central Kitchen of Ayadi caters to the SAVOTEC training needs at lunch and coffee breaks and sells products to staff and to limited clientele outside the Safadi Foundation.

IV. QUALIFICATIONS:                                                                                      

• Proven experience as marketing and sales manager or similar role
• Solid knowledge of marketing techniques and sales principles
• Good understanding of market research techniques and data analysis
• Excellent knowledge of MS Office
• Thorough understanding of social media
• Excellent organizational and multi-tasking skills
• Outstanding communication and interpersonal abilities
• Creativity and commercial awareness
• A team player with a customer-oriented approach
• University degree in marketing, business administration or the like

V. REPORTING

The Sales and Marketing Officer Reports to the President of the Cooperative