Head of Supply Chain & Operations

About Us

Hobbs Pickles is a Canadian-owned and operated CPG brand, founded in 2017, with national grocery distribution and a flagship retail location on Vancouver’s Granville Island. We make premium refrigerated deli pickles, sold through major retailers across Canada, including Sobeys and Loblaw. Known for exceptional quality, serious crunch and a cult-like following, Hobbs has established itself as the most premium pickle brand on the shelf.

Location

Remote, based in Southern Ontario. Expect to visit our cold storage warehouses in Ontario a few times a year, for month-end counts, receiving problems, or a lot that needs eyes on it.

Role Overview

The Supply Chain & Operations Manager owns our supply chain end to end. You decide what we buy and when, negotiate with our suppliers and manufacturers, own the cost of every case we ship, and are accountable for getting product onto shelves at Sobeys and Loblaw.

• Our products are refrigerated and date-coded, with short shelf-life running from 2 - 7 months depending on the SKU. Every purchasing, inventory and allocation decision you make is time sensitive, and getting it right is a core skill in this role.
• You report directly to the CEO. Decisions get made in a conversation, not a committee, and you will have a direct hand in how this business grows.
• You have support from our Regional Operations Manager on order entry and execution.
• Our finished goods are produced by manufacturing partners and held at third-party cold storage, so you manage the network rather than run a facility. This is a broad seat built for someone who wants to scale a supply chain rather than maintain one.
• You will not be doing it alone. Our Regional Operations Manager assists this role with order entry and administration, and our National Sales Manager owns the customer relationships and works alongside you on cost submissions, forecasting and promotional planning.

What's Already in Place

You are not starting from zero. This is an established business with working infrastructure, and you inherit it rather than build it:

• 10 years of trading history, national retail listings, and long-standing manufacturing and distribution partners.
• We use SOS Inventory as our ERP, EDI, and an established warehouse and carrier network across Canada and cross-border.
• A national costing model with landed cost by SKU and region, already built and in use.
• Regional sales and inventory dashboards, and a documented order and inventory tracker.
• Our Regional Operations Manager supports this role on order entry and administration, taking direction from you on that work.

What You Will Own Purchasing & Supplier Management

• Plan and place purchase orders with our manufacturing partners, getting quantities and timing right against forecast.
• Source, quote and negotiate with packaging and materials suppliers.
• Maintain supplier pricing in our system and validate invoiced pricing against agreed rates.
• Manage supplier, carrier performance, quality incidents, credits and debit-backs.

Costing & Margin

• Own the national costing model, maintaining landed cost by SKU and region.
• Build delivered cost submissions for retailers, including distribution allowances, listing fees and other retailer-specific charges.
• Provide margin analysis to the National Sales Manager and CEO to support pricing, promotional and trade spend decisions.
• Own the supply chain budget and submit it to our external accounting partner for review and reconciliation.

Retailer & DC Logistics

• Manage day-to-day logistics into national grocery retailer DCs.
• Book delivery appointments, follow routing guides, and ensure on-time, in-full shipments.
• Manage DC scorecards and prepare documentation to dispute and mitigate fines.

EDI & Retailer Compliance

• Own EDI transactions with our retailers, including purchase orders, acknowledgements, invoices and advance ship notices where required.
• Own EDI platform onboarding and optimization, including new retailer connections and testing.
• Maintain an ASN and EDI error rate under 1% to avoid fines and rejections.
• Manage retailer vendor onboarding, portals, documentation and compliance requirements.
• Ensure accuracy in UPCs, coding and pallet specifications.

Distributor & Customer Order Management

• Manage day-to-day ordering relationships with our national and regional distributors.
• Confirm purchase orders, issue release numbers, and manage pickup and delivery scheduling.
• Monitor distributor on-hand inventory and sell-through to inform replenishment and forecasting.
• Allocate constrained stock across competing customers and manage short-ship communication.

Carrier & Freight Management

• Manage carriers, 3PLs and backup carriers, including cross-border lanes.
• Quote, approve and book freight, balancing cost against service and risk.
• Own BOLs, PODs, COAs, pallet labels, pallet pool reconciliation, seals and temperature set-points.
• Ensure cold-chain integrity so product always arrives with premium quality intact

Inventory Control & Shelf Life

• Implement FIFO, cycle counts, and batch and lot traceability across third-party warehouses.
• Reconcile warehouse inventory reports against our system of record and resolve discrepancie
• Manage shelf life and rotation across a refrigerated portfolio with dating from two to seven months, acting early on short-code and overstock positions to avoid write-offs.

Cold Chain & Quality

• Monitor temperature logs, stacking standards and warehouse handling practices.
• Lead root cause analysis, damage, contamination or compliance issues.
• Implement corrective actions to prevent repeat issues and protect consumer confidence.
• Maintain supplier compliance documentation, lot traceability and recall readiness across our manufacturing partners.

Reporting & Continuous Improvement

• Maintain regional sales and inventory dashboards, and track deductions and chargebacks.
• Improve and streamline our supply chain systems to reduce manual work as volume grows.
• Document processes and build SOPs as the business scales.

Your First Year

• Take over the existing order, inventory and purchasing cycle and run it cleanly.
• Support a national retail launch this fall, including EDI connection, compliance setup and cost submissions.
• Take ownership of the costing model and give us better visibility on landed cost and margin as volumes grow.
• Identify where manual work is slowing us down and fix it.

KPIs

• Case fill at or above 96%
• OTIF at or above 95%
• ASN and EDI error rate under 1%
• Zero missed cycle counts, batch traceability maintained 100%
• Fines successfully challenged and recovered
• Landed cost accuracy and margin visibility by SKU and region

Who You Are

• 5+ years in supply chain, logistics or operations within CPG food or beverage.
• Comfortable planning against dated inventory. Direct fresh or short-code experience is an asset, but what matters more is the discipline of buying to a forecast when product has a clock on it.
• Direct experience with Canadian national grocery retailers, including DC shipments, routing guides, scorecards and vendor compliance.
• Hands-on with EDI, BOL and POD documentation, DC appointment portals and ASN creation.
• Comfortable owning a costing model, and able to construct a delivered cost to a retailer including allowances and fees.
• Experience managing third-party warehouses, co-manufacturers or contract packers.
• Advanced MS Excel skills. You are quick and accurate in a spreadsheet and can turn numbers into a recommendation.
• Experience with SOS Inventory or a comparable ERP is an asset.
• Comfortable partnering with sales, and confident pushing back when a commitment outruns what supply can deliver.
• Self-directed. You set your own priorities and move work forward without being managed day to day.
• Willing to be hands-on. At our stage, owning the strategy also means being in the portals and the spreadsheets yourself.
• You understand that logistics is brand: you protect presentation, freshness and compliance at every step.

Details

• Job Type: Full-time, permanent
• Reports to: Founder and CEO
• Location: Ontario. Hybrid remote, Toronto area.