SKILLS & EXPERIENCE
- 5-10 years in FMCG.
- Clear evidence of having scaled operations:
- 10 → 50+ outlets, or
- Single → multi-kitchen, or
- Rapid SKU and volume expansion.
- Prior ownership of cost control, inventory, and consumption systems.
- Deep hands-on experience with recipe costing and yield analysis.
- Strong inventory control and wastage tracking capability.
- Hands-on ERP experience - not just "used the system" but configured recipes/BOMs, designed inventory workflows, and driven adoption across reluctant operations teams. Experience with food manufacturing ERPs (Baromax, BatchMaster, SAP B1, or similar) is a strong plus.
- Comfortable spending time in kitchens and warehouses.
- Ability to hold operations accountable using data.
Roles and Responsibility
1 Enforce purchase-to-pay discipline
- Enforce PO → GRN → Invoice compliance.
- Track purchase price variances vs contracts.
- Identify UOM errors, substitutions, short/excess receipts.
- Ensure supplier credits and claims are captured.
2. Run an operational reporting cadence
- Build daily and weekly dashboards.
- Drive exception-based reporting:
- Abnormal consumption
- Yield deterioration
- Inventory mismatches
3. Build and lead the cost control function
- Hire, train, and manage a 2-4 member cost control team.
- Standardise audits, checks, and escalation mechanisms.
- Act as institutional memory for what breaks during scale.
5. Own the ERP as the single source of truth for cost and inventory data
- Own recipe and BOM master data in the ERP - ensure every product has an accurate, version-controlled recipe loaded with correct yields, UOMs, and ingredient costs.
- Ensure all production, consumption, and inventory transactions are captured in the ERP in real time - no offline spreadsheets, no end-of-day bulk entries.
- Enforce GRN and stock transfer workflows within the ERP - reject any process that bypasses the system.
- Drive ERP hygiene: SKU rationalisation, UOM standardisation, elimination of duplicate items, and consistent cost centre tagging across locations.
6. Own the truth of consumption
- Own theoretical vs actual consumption across all SKUs.
- Govern recipe accuracy and version control.
- Identify yield loss, wastage, rejects, rework, pilferage.
- Control food and packaging consumption leakage.
7. Be the enforcement layer operations cannot bypass
- Conduct kitchen, warehouse, and dispatch audits.
- Run cycle counts and surprise inventory checks.
- Challenge unexplained variances until closed.
- Escalate non-compliance using data, not opinions.
8. Build systems that survive scale
- Design and implement SOPs for:
- Recipe creation and updates
- Wastage recording
- Stock counts and reconciliations
- Inter-location transfers
- Strengthen POS / inventory / accounting integrations.
- Improve master data hygiene (SKUs, UOMs, recipes).
- Reduce manual overrides as scale increases.
9. Control inventory
- Own inventory accuracy across all locations.
- Investigate physical vs system variances.
- Track expiry, slow-moving and obsolete stock.
- Identify and close shrinkage and loss gaps.
