Category Manager, Beverage

MANE is a 5th generation French family-owned business known for innovation and progress in the world of Flavor and Fragrance. As sensation enthusiasts, we strive to provide exceptional moments in people’s daily lives through the timeless flavors and fragrances we create. With our passion, creativity, and innovation, “We capture what moves”.

We are seeking a strategic and commercially minded Category Manager to lead and grow our Refreshment and Coffee Beverage business. This role requires strong market insight, a passion for flavor innovation, and the ability to link technical needs, consumer trends and customer opportunities into high-performing flavor solutions. You will work closely with Creation, Applications, long-term Research, Sales, Marketing, Regulatory, and Supply Chain teams to drive the growth, differentiation, and profitability of the Beverage category.

Key Responsibilities

Category Strategy & Roadmap

• Define and Execute Strategy: Lead the technical and commercial roadmap for the Refreshment and Coffee Beverage Categories to drive long-term growth and profitability.
• Project Management: Project manages key initiatives across multi-disciplined teams of Research, Creation, Applications, and Marketing.
• Pipeline Management: Manage the flavor portfolio roadmap, ensuring a balance between core maintenance and high-growth innovation projects.

Market & Competitive Analysis

• Market Assessment: Monitor market trends, consumer preferences, competitive landscape, and regulatory developments.
• Gap Analysis: Proactively identify “whitespaces” or technical gaps in current flavor capabilities – especially within coffee, citrus, and taste modification
• Market Intelligence: Monitor consumer trends and regulatory developments to ensure the innovation pipeline meets evolving market demands for the US market.

Product Development & Innovation

• Bridge Technical & Commercial: Act as the primary translator between technical communities (Flavorists, Research, and Applications) and commercial teams (Sales and Marketing) to commercialize new capabilities.
• Taste Modification Lead: Serve as the category expert for Taste Modification technologies, including sweetness enhancement, masking, and sensates.
• Coffee & Citrus Specialist: Act as the category authority for Coffee and Citrus programs, ensuring flavor systems are tailored specifically to varied beverage product formats.

Commercialization & Sales Enablement

• Value Proposition Creation: Partner with Sales and Marketing to build technical-led value propositions and "go-to-market" tools that highlight MANE’s unique flavor solutions.
• Customer Engagement: Lead innovation workshops and act as the technical category expert in high-level customer meetings to win new business.
• Performance Tracking: Manage category performance by monitoring revenue, margin, and portfolio profitability to ensure the success of commercialized programs
• Global Translation: Collaborate with global subject matter experts to identify international innovations and adapt them for successful implementation in the US beverage market.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Chemistry, Business, or related field; advanced degree a plus.
• 5+ years of experience in flavor, food ingredient, or product/category management roles within the flavor industry.
• Strong understanding of flavor development, sensory considerations, and formulation trends in beverage applications.
• Proven ability to connect technical attributes to customer and consumer value.
• Experience working in cross-functional, matrixed environments.
• Excellent analytical, communication, and project management skills.

Preferred Experience

• Familiarity with global regulatory considerations for food ingredients.
• Background in B2B ingredient marketing or technical sales support.

MANE offers industry leading benefits including a generous PTO plan. Additional benefits include paid holidays, annual year-end shutdown, annual and bi-weekly 401(k) contributions, tuition reimbursement, paid parental leave, employee assistance programs and many more.

MANE is known for having a culture that focuses on our employees and their well-being. See for yourself why our employees love working at MANE!

MANE is an equal opportunity employer.