Buyer - Soft Drinks (Fruit Carbs, Sports & Energy)
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Sainsbury's Commercial & Sustainability
Closing date: 15 June 2026
Requisition ID: 400064855
About the team
Our Food Commercial team plays a key role in shaping a competitive, customer-focused offer across supermarket, convenience and online channels. Working at the heart of the business, the team brings together commercial insight, supplier partnerships and customer understanding to deliver a distinctive range that supports our vision to help everyone eat better. You’ll collaborate closely with cross-functional partners including Supply Chain, Product Development, Technical and Range Analytics to drive performance and continuous improvement.
More about the role
As a Buyer, you will be accountable for developing and delivering the buying and selling strategy for your category. You will own the end-to-end commercial performance of your range, including pricing, promotions, product selection and supplier partnerships. Your focus will be on growing market share and cash profit while maintaining a value-competitive and customer-focused offer.
Day to day, you will analyse market, customer and financial data to identify opportunities, lead cross-functional projects, and work closely with Range Analysts to shape a compelling product range. You will also negotiate product costs, influence stakeholders to align on category plans, and support the development of own brand products to strengthen the overall proposition.
More about you
You bring a commercial mindset with the ability to interpret data and translate insights into actionable plans. You are comfortable managing multiple priorities and working collaboratively across teams to deliver results. You are able to build effective relationships with internal stakeholders and suppliers to drive performance aligned to business objectives.
You demonstrate accountability for outcomes, can adapt your approach to different situations and communicate clearly to influence and engage others. You are focused on delivering measurable results, while contributing to a supportive and high-performing team environment.
Essential criteria
- Proven experience developing and delivering category or buying plans that drive commercial performance
- Demonstrable ability to analyse financial, market and customer data to inform decision-making
- Experience negotiating with suppliers to achieve agreed cost and commercial outcomes
- Evidence of managing cross-functional projects through to delivery
- Experience implementing pricing and promotional strategies aligned to commercial objectives
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them: Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).
