Asda House, Leeds - Hybrid
Are you a commercially astute Trading Manager with a passion for food trends, innovation, and delivering growth in fast-moving categories?
We're looking for a Trading Manager to lead our International Meal Solutions category at Asda. This is an exciting opportunity to shape a diverse and growing portfolio that brings global flavours and convenient meal occasions to millions of customers across the UK.
As the Trading Manager, you'll have full accountability for category performance, leading the development and execution of commercial strategies that drive sales, profitability, and market share. Working closely with branded and own-label suppliers, you'll identify emerging trends, develop compelling customer propositions, and ensure Asda remains competitive in an increasingly dynamic market.
You'll combine customer insight, commercial expertise, and strong supplier partnerships to build a category that excites customers, delivers value, and supports Asda's wider growth ambitions.
What you'll be doing
- Owning the end-to-end trading performance of the International Meal Solutions category, delivering sales, profit, and market share growth.
- Developing and executing category strategies that respond to evolving customer tastes, food trends, and market opportunities.
- Leading negotiations with key suppliers to secure the best outcomes across pricing, promotions, innovation, range development, and investment.
- Building strong supplier partnerships and delivering joint business plans that drive sustainable growth.
- Managing category P&L performance and making data-led decisions to optimise commercial outcomes.
- Identifying opportunities to grow participation in international cuisines, meal occasions, and convenience-led solutions.
- Leading category reviews, product launches, promotional plans, and range optimisation initiatives.
- Analysing customer, market, and competitor insights to identify growth opportunities and emerging trends.
- Collaborating with Product Development, Supply Chain, Finance, Marketing, Retail Operations, and Technical teams to successfully deliver category plans.
- Driving cost-to-serve and efficiency initiatives while maintaining a compelling customer offer.
- Championing innovation and ensuring Asda remains at the forefront of international food trends.
What you'll bring
- Significant experience in a Trading, Buying, Category Management, or Commercial role within retail or FMCG.
- Proven success delivering category growth, supplier negotiations, and strong commercial performance.
- Strong understanding of P&L management, pricing strategy, and category economics.
- Excellent negotiation and influencing skills with a track record of building successful supplier relationships.
- A passion for food, consumer trends, and bringing innovative products to market.
- Strong analytical capability with the ability to translate data into actionable commercial strategies.
- Outstanding stakeholder management skills and the ability to influence across multiple functions.
- A customer-first mindset, balancing commercial delivery with customer needs and value.
- Resilience, curiosity, and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced and evolving retail environment.
Why Asda?
International cuisines continue to be one of the most exciting areas of food retail, driven by changing customer tastes, increased demand for convenience, and a growing appetite for authentic global flavours. This role offers the opportunity to lead a strategically important category, shape its future direction, and make a real impact for millions of Asda customers.
You'll work with leading global and local suppliers, influence category strategy at scale, and help create innovative meal solutions that inspire customers every day.
If you're a commercially driven Trading Manager who thrives on creating winning customer propositions and delivering category growth, we'd love to hear from you.
Everything you'll love
To ensure we balance moments where we know we need to collaborate together and the need for flexibility, Asda has a hybrid way of working with a minimum 3 days a week in one of our Home Offices. Over and above this, each area of Asda may have additional requirements which may require spending more days in the office, visiting suppliers, stores or depots.
You will also get an excellent benefits package including:
Discretionary company bonus
Company pension up to 7% matched
Company Car allowance of £5,700
15% colleague discount in store and online
Free access to wellbeing services such as Stream, 24/7 virtual GP, counselling, health and dental cash plans and a 24/7 employee assistance helpline, alongside discounts across a range of services and activities, from airport parking, enhanced to theme parks and cinemas.
Asda Allies Inclusion Networks – helping colleagues to make sure everybody is included and that our differences are recognised and celebrated
Excellent parental leave policies, including maternity & adoption leave, paternity leave, shared parental leave, neonatal care leave, and support for those doing fertility treatments.
We want all colleagues to be able to bring their best and true selves to work, every day. Simply put, we want our colleagues to be Proud to be Asda and proud to be themselves