Job Title

Assistant Category Manager Etobicoke, ON Food Manufacturing Consumer Packaged Goods Hybrid 3 days onsite The Company: Our Client is a leading Canadian Food Manufacturer. With several decades of history producing quality food products that Canadian familys consume everyday. Selling into all major national Grocery / Retail chains, as well as Food Service channels, they are going through and exciting growth phase, adding to their Commercial Sales & Marketing team. Improving their Go-To-Market approach, strategy, and innovation leadership group. The Opportunity: This role plays a key part in delivering best-in-class shelf execution that supports category leadership and drives growth. The Asst Category Manager, collaborates closely with Category Leadership and Sales teams to deliver merchandising solutions and decision support that strengthen category leadership and improve shelf performance. Senior Planogram / Space Planning experience is a must. This role is responsible for planogram development, analysis, and execution, as well as maintaining the underlying data environments required to support space planning, reporting, and insights generation. The role also supports ad hoc analytics, category reporting, and business reviews using a variety of syndicated, retailer, and internal data sources. The ideal candidate is technically strong, highly organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable working in a fast-paced CPG environment with multiple priorities and timelines. Responsibilities & Deliverables: Planogram Development, Analysis & Execution Build multiple versions of planograms based on ideal assortments, clustering strategies, fixture variations, and merchandising guidelines. Review and validate all planograms to ensure adherence to retailer strategies, space standards, and internal guidelines; apply revisions as required. Support planogram execution while forecasting workload requirements to ensure successful and timely project completion. Shelf Analytics & Decision Support Use syndicated data, retailer POS, and space tools to support category analysis, customer reviews, and internal insight projects. Conduct ad hoc analytics that answer business questions and uncover performance trends to support Senior Category Manager recommendations. Evaluate shelf productivity, space-to-sales ratios, and SKU efficiency to identify opportunities for improvement. Data Management & Quality Control Maintain a robust planogram and reporting database environment, including store and item attribution, performance data uploads, and project setup. Ensure accuracy, integrity, and consistency of data sources and deliverables Partner with internal BI teams and external data or tool vendors as required to resolve data issues. Cross-Functional Collaboration Work closely with Category Manager, Sales, Insights, and Revenue Management to ensure high-quality, customer-ready outputs. Support customer meetings, line reviews, and Joint Business Planning through accurate planogram and analytical deliverables. Stay current on customer KPIs, strategies, innovation plans, and merchandising requirements. Ideal Qualifications & Competencies: Bachelors degree in Business, Marketing, Statistics, Analytics, or related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. 35 years of experience in Category Analysis, Insights (Nielsen) OR planogramming, space planning, within CPG or retail. Hands-on experience with space management and planogram software (e.g., JDA, ProSpace, Spaceman, Apollo). Proficient in Microsoft Office applications, including Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook; intermediate Excel skills required. Experience supporting major Canadian retailers (e.g., Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart Canada, Costco). Experience working with syndicated data (e.g., Circana) and/or retailer POS data. Experience functioning in a corporate office environment. Strong attention to detail, organizational skills, and ability to manage multiple priorities and deadlines. Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate effectively within cross-functional teams.