Ayo West African Foods Inventory Manager Harvey, IL · Part time

Apply for Inventory Manager

About The Position

Do you walk into a store picking up every package with excitement in understanding all of the ingredients, their stories, and what it took to get them in your hands? If so, we’d love love meet you! Ayo West African Foods is a fast-growing start-up, committed to sharing the goodness of West African flavors and ingredients to disrupt grocery as we know it. We’re seeking an enthusiastic Inventory Manager to join our team who is working hard to build a more representative food culture!

This critical role will be a key role in our inventory management practice and be a key thought partner in developing our sustainable sourcing network. You’ll own crop planning and global procurement, and on site inventory management at our production facility. Working alongside our co-founders, operations, and culinary teams, this role will be vital in building the foundation of a best-in-class sourcing team.

This is a Chicago-based role that will primarily sit on-site at our production facility in the South Suburbs of Chicago, IL for approximately 20 hours per week.

Job tasks will include:

• Manage end-to-end transportation of all raw and finished goods, sourcing and negotiating all freight/warehousing contracts in partnership with co-man
• Designing and implementing an inventory tracking system for optimized inventory control procedures
• Manages inventory tracking system to record deliveries, shipments and stock levels.
• Evaluates and creates reporting for deliveries, shipments and product levels to improve inventory control procedures.
• Analyzes daily product and supply levels to anticipate inventory problems and shortages.
• Identify new strategic sourcing partners
• Build meaningful relationships with all partners in our supply chain through strategic and collaborative communication

Education & Experience:

• 5+ years experience leading or managing operations and supply chain for a growing food / CPG company (startup experience strongly preferred)
• Bachelor’s or associate’s degree in business, logistics, systems engineering, supply chain management or similar
• Experience working with inventory management software and forecasting strategies (e.g. Microsoft Office, QuickBooks or NetSuite)
• Experience conducting tracking and data analysis
• Product and inventory management certification a plus

Skills/Abilities:

• Motivated self-manager who takes initiative and can deliver on high expectations
• Excitement and understanding of Ayo West African Foods mission, vision + values
• Strategic, confident communicator both verbal and written
• Strong collaborator, skilled at building trusting relationships, getting buy-in and advocating for the company's needs and priorities
• Culture fit: Naturally Curious, Straight Shooter, Highly Collaborative and Adaptable, Can laugh at yourself when needed - After all, our name does mean joy!