Will you be our new...

Sourcing & Raw Material Planner

Supply ChainDirect | Fulltime

We Grow, We Care, We Inspire and We Smile

Vitacress Real is one of the leading herbal specialists in Europe. With our young and fast growing company, our mission is to let people enjoy food with natural and healthy seasonings.

Herbs are grown all year round, in order to ensure that we can offer consistent quality throughout the year. We like to grow in places where the product grows in the most natural and sustainable way. That is why we grow in the Netherlands, Germany, England, Spain and Portugal, among others. At our location in Venlo, these freshly grown herbs are then packaged for the European market and international consumers.

When you enter our building in Venlo you can taste the freshness and energy of Vitacress Real. You become infected with the passion for the product. Central to this are four values that can be felt by all colleagues. We Grow, We Care, We Inspire and We Smile.

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Would you like to frame this vacancy?
When someone in the bar asks you what your job is, you say:
“Within our Supply Chain team and in collaboration with our growers, I ensure that we always have the best quality product to produce with”.

But of course, you do a lot more…

You will act as our Sourcing & RM expert at the epicentre of our growing Herbal company. Responsible for the supply 2 till 12 weeks rolling planning and managing operational sourcing within our existing grower portfolio. As a Sourcing & RM Planner, you will monitor together with your 2 Sourcing & RM colleagues the availability of crops in our international grower network, anticipate on changes in weather conditions and or fluctuations in demand and develop alternative supply options to safeguard best possible availability of herbs. Also, you will review performance of our suppliers based on OTIQ to help them continuously improve. But there is more:

  • Maintaining and building sustainable and intensive relationships with our herbal suppliers or growers.
  • Drawing up a tactical sourcing plan within our existing grower portfolio and translating to daily operational purchasing plan.
  • On weekly and monthly basis, you review and report the performance per grower and initiate actions accordingly.
  • In case there are exception-based demand changes within the horizon of 6 weeks you will inform the growers and discuss gaps with our Sourcing Specialist. Permanent changes are always discussed with Sourcing Specialist so that necessary adjustments can be implemented within programmed growers.
  • Every week you analyze the provided supplier availability of growers against the demand and discuss potential challenges with the growers and seek to find alternative options for safeguarding herbs availability.
  • Managing herbs inventory and ensuring freshness while considering Service, Cost and Quality.
  • In case we are missing volumes on short term then you are in the lead to search for those extra volumes needed within our network of growers. When we have ad-hoc shortages you work closely with your fellow S&RM planner to make sure that we resolve this challenge. Our sourcing Specialist is ready to support if there is insufficient product available at our existing growers network.
  • When we have quality issues with our growers, you will discuss these issues with the grower based on our internal quality input at incoming and shelf life data.
  • You monitor the progress of delivery performance of the growers and where needed, you come up with an improvement plan.
  • Analyzing the yearly sourcing demand plan is also part of your tasks and as expert you are enable to pinpoint anomalies and take action accordingly.

To give you an even better picture… Just another day at the office

You start the day with a phone call from your colleague Claudia. She has good news!... she managed to find a new grower to supply basil. There were quite a few challenges since our current growers could not supply enough product due to disappointing weather in southern Europe, so you are very happy that a solution has been found. The daily Sunrise starts at 9:00 AM and that gives you the opportunity to share this good news and to compliment your colleague #Wecare. After the Sunrise you have a meeting with our Teamleader Quality Control, Piotr. The shelf-life test shows that the dill scores unsatisfactory. This is something that has happened more often lately. This is something you will discuss with the grower. Not good news to share, but it is important to look together for a solution how we can improve this. Then you join a short meeting with our International Key Account Manager and our Demand Planner John. It turns out that the quantities for the next promo week have increased considerably. Important information for you because this means you have to adjust your planning. Together with your colleagues you will discuss how we will arrive at the quantities. The necessary actions are plotted and then it is time for lunch. Together with your Supply Chain colleague Guus you go for a walk and enjoy a fresh cup of soup in our Greenhouse Cafe.

After lunch you will do the weekly availability check with your colleague to see if there are any potential challenges. Things look good for the next couple of weeks. The quality of basil seems to be improving as the weather improves in the coming weeks. You discuss this with you’re the team and they are also happy with this development. After this you are going to production to share this good news with our shift leaders as well. In recent weeks we had to sort a lot what means extra work, so good news for everyone that is looks promising upcoming weeks. You end the day with a weekly meeting with your manager Samim. Together you go through the latest developments. Nice to be able to discuss this and share what is going on. Time has come to go home. With satisfaction you look back on this energetic and fun day! No day is the same and that is proven again after today. But this makes you super happy #Wesmile!

To be successful as our new herbal topper you have the following ingredients:

  • Preferably 5 years or more demonstrable experience in a similar role and preferably within a production environment.
  • You can work well both individually and in a team. Your motto is “together you achieve more”.
  • You like to be in contact with various parties. You have a service-oriented attitude and like to think along. Working together on the best possible solution.
  • Your communication skills are very strong. You are a real problem solver, and you like to bring different parties together.
  • You are proficient in the English and preferably Dutch language.
  • You are also flexible, collegial and result oriented.
  • You are very experienced with Excel, and you are used to work with ERP systems.
  • High sense of responsibility and self-reliance.
  • Analyzing, able to convincingly convey results and ideas in a concise manner.
  • Resilient and knows how to deal with deadlines.
  • You get energy from working in a dynamic environment.
  • And last but not least… working with numbers is something you really like. And business intelligence is well known to you.
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What makes working at Vitacress Real fun?

We Grow. An enormous drive, an enormous growth. Since the start of Vitacress Real about 11 years ago, we have been experiencing enormous growth every year. We will continue to achieve this ambition in the coming years. And we do this together. Our team consists of people who want to get the most out of themselves and their teammates.

We Inspire. We value initiative and input and believe that this makes our organization better. There is also plenty of room for this. After all, together we achieve more. Vitacress Real is active in a niche market. There is a lot that can be optimized, and your input is important. You are a continuous success part of the process.

We Care. We believe growth and development are essential. Furthermore, we want to take good care of people. So, you can also enjoy a delicious fresh soup with the best quality herbs every day, together with your colleagues! People work hard, but social talk is also stimulated by working up a sweat before or after work in the equipped fitness room. Or do you prefer winning the table tennis battles?

We Smile. A great working atmosphere where hard work and having fun go hand-in-hand. Our annually recurring Social Calendar is filled with fun team events.

Are you joining our dream team? This is what we offer:

  • A super dynamic working environment with talented colleagues who want to take each other to a higher level. You will be included in a knowledge organization that is growing and that focuses on experience and quality.
  • Mint, thyme, rosemary (or any other herb), as much as you want!
  • Free access to the Vita-Gym, so you stay fit in body and mind.
  • A travel allowance from your front door to ours.
  • Unlimited access to our online VR Academy!
  • A great opportunity to share knowledge in an environment with room for own initiative and personal development.

Would you like to join our team of unbeatable herbies?

Please share your contact information and resume via the form below and we will contact you as soon as possible. If you still have doubts or do you have questions about what makes this position so great? Then give us a call (Marlijn de Bruin, 06 11848647).

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