Company description

Kitchen Sync Strategies is a social enterprise brokerage and consulting company dedicated to supporting small producers. We launched in 2019, and we are driven by the belief that a smarter, healthier food economy is built around people being in relationship with their food and farmers. We work with buyers, suppliers, and supporters of local food.

Kitchen Sync believes there is immense, untapped potential in the institutional food market channel, and through our work brokering sales opportunities for small farms, food hubs, and food companies, we have created systems that help realize the promise of farm-to-school and farm-to-institution efforts nationwide.

Job description

The Regional Food Sales Lead (IA) is an exciting role for Kitchen Sync Strategies, and it will play a pivotal role in our rapidly growing work in Iowa. This RFSL will be responsible for using Kitchen Sync’s existing systems and processes to drive sales of food from food hubs and values-aligned supplier clients of ours to Iowa institutions like K-12 schools, hospitals, universities, corporate dining facilities, and others. The position is also responsible for developing new business partnerships with values-aligned food businesses (like value-added food makers, CPG companies, etc.). As a representative of KSS playing a specific sales- and value chain coordination-focused role in each project, the RFSL will support the Director of Regional Growth and CEO to embed KSS in farm-to-school, farm-to-ECE, and farm-to-institution projects across the State. This work will focus on our work with 2 core partners:

Food Hubs/Suppliers: The RFSL will lead the sales of local/regional, sustainably grown, and/or equitably grown food products to institutions on behalf of our 4 food hub clients in the state.
Non-profit Support Partners: The RFSL will support our company’s partnerships with Iowa Valley Resource Conservation & Development.

We’re seeking an experienced, charismatic sales leader who understands the process of institutional food sales well, who has a sharp sense of strategy, and has a firm commitment to building a fairer, more sustainable food economy.

A successful Regional Food Sales Lead will:
- Develop strong personal relationships with buyers, sustainability leaders, and/or local procurement leadership within each institution to which Kitchen Sync sells products
- Implement a bold yet achievable sales growth plan for client food hubs and food companies 
- Perform weekly sales activities including:
    - Carefully manage Kitchen Sync’s CRM database to track existing sales accounts
    - Make regular, recurring contact with all active leads, anticipating customer needs and working hard to strengthen personal relationships
    -Conduct outbound sales calls to new institutional customers
    -Understand inventory, logistics, and operational capacity for client food hubs and suppliers, and share substitutions, menu items, and specials with customers on a weekly basis 
 -Engage a broader range of values-aligned food hubs and food companies in new brokerage relationships, including adding food businesses to KSS’ sales portfolio in Iowa and the Midwest
- Work with CEO and Regional Director of Growth to attract more institutional buying clients for KSS
- Ensure customer satisfaction while meeting sales targets for client food hubs
- Making group presentations to institution representatives (especially K-12 school districts) on local procurement strategies and providing 1:1 Technical Assistance 
- Recognizing and documenting barriers for buyers and sellers, trends in buyer behavior, informing solutions to improve KSS work and partner programs
- Maintain a high level of integrity as a representative of KSS, and be about it 😎
- Other related stuff that we encounter along the way

Important Skills Required (and Desired):
Required Skills
- Sales experience specifically in local/regional food systems 
    - Preference for candidates with 3-5 years of experience in fields of institutional foodservice, food sales, or food procurement
- A strong grasp of the institutional foodservice market and a particularly keen understanding of farm-to-school and institutional procurement
   - Preference for candidates with direct experience in institutional foodservice, working with food hubs and other suppliers, and/or large scale procurement businesses and foodservice companies 
- A demonstrated, strong understanding of the local food system in Iowa
- A deep, firm commitment to the notion that supporting small farms and food producers to access institutional markets is one critical step towards building a fairer, healthier, less harmful food economy
- Good writing and even better verbal communication skills
- A commitment to building real relationships rooted in compassion, kindness, and care
- Ability to synthesize complex information, recognizing and documenting patterns in buyer and seller behavior to inform improvements to systems and programs

Desired Skills 
- A sense of adventure and a willingness to explore new ideas of how to build fairer food economies- and a tolerance for the high levels of ambiguity inherent in this work
- Tech savvy and ability to quickly leverage a range of softwares that increase productivity and creativity in your work. (We tend to use tools like Mural, Canva, and other design tools to visualize our work.)
- Experience with HubSpot or similar ERP software, and/or experience inventory systems for food hubs (Local Food Marketplace, Shopify, etc.) is a big plus
- Strong focus and the ability to maintain drive while working remotely, with regular meetings via Zoom (or in-person as necessary)
- Fluency working across the G-Suite platform
- Training/teaching experience, including ability to cross-train others in 1:1, small group, and large group settings
- Experience presenting to groups and comfort with public speaking and presentations

Compensation Package
Starting salary of $65-$69k per year with the full benefits (medical, dental, vision, and life insurance, 401k)

Compensation

this position is: salaried, 50k-75k

Location

job can be done remotely

Application instructions

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Deadline

January 13, 2025