Sales Manager, Natural Channel

About Us:Since 1935, we’ve been on a mission to bring a little extra happiness to everyday life and inspire connections over food. We select the finest ingredients the world has to offer, craft premium products made with love, and never settle for shortcuts. We believe that when we share our food, we share a part of ourselves — and that’s the only way we’d put our name on it.

Today, our small family company has grown into a national leader in specialty olives, peppers, and sauces under the leadership of CEO Jeff Mezzetta , and our commitment to quality has never wavered. With an 80-year legacy behind us and a bright future ahead, we’re seeking passionate, driven candidates to help us bring our cherished family traditions to a new generation.

The ideal candidate will have an immediate connection to our Core Ingredients:

- Crunchy Crunchy: We are hungry for excellence.

- Own It: We think and act as an owner – with appetite, initiative, and responsibility.

- Connection: We build authentic relationships that foster trust and open communications.

- Vibrance: We come to work eager and passionate about fulfilling our vision. When we share our work, we share a part of who we are.

The primary role of the Sales Manager, Natural Channel is to grow revenue and build category market share for the Jeff’s Garden and Mezzetta brands within the Natural retail channel, nationally. This is a national role with responsibility across the entire U.S., not a single-region territory. Assigned retailers consist of Natural and Specialty accounts—Sprouts, NCG, INFRA, Natural Grocers, The Fresh Market, including the broad base of independent retailers. The role is also responsible for managing the distributors that supply these retailers, including UNFI, KeHE, and select specialty distributors.

The Sales Manager, Natural Channel drives revenue and market share by strategizing and developing sales plans for each account, selling and executing the sales plans directly with the accounts as well as through the assistance of third-party sales agencies (brokers).

Selling the Jeff’s Garden brand and Mezzetta products into assigned Natural channel accounts, the Sales Manager will partner closely with Marketing on executing Jeff’s Garden brand strategies and tactics, and will manage the UNFI and specialty distributor relationships that serve those accounts to optimize distribution and net landed cost.

Growing revenue and building category market share is done by optimizing item Distribution, Shelf presence, off-shelf Merchandising and retail Pricing (DSMP’s). Sales Managers influence DSMP’s via fact-based sales proposals and by investing merchandising funds. Sales Managers are accountable for investing merchandising funds within an approved budget.

Ultimately, successful Mezzetta Sales Managers grow revenue, enhance account profitability and build category market share across their assigned retailers.

This is a remote position that will require flexibility to travel up to 30% of the time, meaning one to two nights a week away from home. Some weekend/evening work required to meet deadlines and potentially to work trade shows. For Sales Managers who reside in Mountain, Central and Eastern time zones, there will be the occasional early evening conference calls due to Mezzetta being based in the Pacific Time Zone.

Responsibilities

- Revenue: Achievement of assigned revenue goals as measured by internal financial reporting.

- Category Market Share: Achievement of brand market share goals as measured by syndicated data sources (i.e., Nielsen, SPINS).

- Distribution: Building retail item distribution across all categories, including new items (Innovation).

- Account Profitability: Achievement of trade investment rate budgets and account profitability goals.

- Forecasting Accuracy: Including monthly case volume demand and trade spend (via AR7).

- National Broker Management: Prioritize and provide direction to brokers for exe