Advertiser's description:
We are looking for a collaborative and engaging lead to work in our Business and Investor Engagement (B&IE) team to grow and build relationships with the UK food sector.
This role will oversee the charity’s engagement with the business community, with a particular focus on the Out of Home and manufacturing sectors.
This involves having strategic oversight of and managing relationships with businesses across the UK food system and positioning ourselves as insight-led critical friends.
The B&IE team engages major food businesses on actions they can take to shift the UK towards more healthy and sustainable diets in order to tackle food system issues such as climate change, nature loss, diet related disease and dietary inequalities.
We provide insight and analysis underpinned by our Plating Up Progress benchmark to support and hold businesses to account in increasing sales of healthier and more sustainable foods and in shifting towards more responsible business practices.
The business engagement lead will work closely with the Senior Business and Investor engagement manager to build and develop relationships with the Out of Home and manufacturing sectors, oversee the Food Foundation’s role in an exciting new partnership with a major broadcaster in support of more plant rich diets, oversee the delivery of our flagship report – The State of the Nation’s Food Industry (SOFI) - and collaborate with civil society partners also working in this space.
Previous line management experience is desirable but not essential.
This role would be well suited to a registered nutritionist or sustainable food systems expert with experience of working in or with industry and looking to make the move into the charity sector.
Main responsibilities
Business Engagement
- Hold the strategic relationship with the Out of Home (casual dining, quick service and catering) and manufacturing sectors. This part of the role is about being clear about the whole journey we are taking them on as well as thinking about how we collaborate with other civil society organisations to achieve our objectives.
- Develop our senior level relationships with businesses. This includes working closely with the Executive Director and Senior Business and Investor Engagement manager on a process and activities for cultivating a small group of leadership businesses willing take a more proactive role in positively influencing national food policy.
- Ensure that our focus on business transparency and disclosure on standardised health and environmental metrics is a core part of our engagement with both industry and policymakers.
- Work closely with our Head of Campaigns in liaising with businesses and organisations as part of a major new campaign in partnership with a UK broadcaster in support of plant rich diets that will run 2024-2025.
Project management and monitoring
- Maintain good relationships with funders according to their requirements, and provide input to proposals and funding bids where relevant.
- Support the business and investor team’s portfolio of programmes and projects, including on sustainable diets, corporate reporting, Plating Up Progress, and the SOFI report.
- Work closely with the Senior Business and Investor engagement manager to develop and implement project plans and deliverables; including roundtables, events and briefings.
- Ownership of our internal database and CRM system for tracking business progress against our key business asks for Plating Up Progress businesses, and in tracking the asks we are making of businesses to ensure we are taking a co-ordinated and coherent approach.
- Lead cross organisational teams in delivery of wider Food Foundation change objectives aimed at food businesses?
This job description is intended as an outline indicator of general areas of activity only. The Food Foundation is a small charity and as such all staff are expected to vary their duties as necessary to meet the needs of the organisation.
Technical skills
- You have an excellent grasp of the business stakeholder audience; you know what makes them tick and can provide insight as to how to best engage them.
- You are able to build and maintain positive relations with businesses and NGO’s
- You are curious about wider market and regulatory conditions and demonstrate a good understanding of how these conditions affect business behaviour and impact the shift to healthy and sustainable diets.
- You have knowledge of corporate social responsibility trends, reporting and transparency in support of reaching our Net Zero targets and healthier, more sustainable diets.
- You can write briefings and reports to suit varying audiences (technical and non-technical).
** The current post holder manages one person, a project officer. For potential applicants who do not have line management experience, we can rearrange responsibilities in the team and offer this maternity cover role as a non-managerial position. This would be at a different scale and salary range, between £37,000 to £41,050.
Apply by 22 April 2024 at 9am BST.
