Astera is a growing international hospitality and catering group with a vision to make exceptional hospitality possible anywhere.
We develop, mobilise and operate hospitality concepts and destinations; provide specialist catering for private aviation, yachts and events; and deliver the support services that keep hospitality environments operating safely and effectively.
Across the group, we combine culinary expertise, strong operations and commercial discipline with a growing international infrastructure. As Astera expands, procurement has an increasingly important role to play in bringing together our buying power while protecting the quality, flexibility and individual requirements of each business.
THE ROLE
We are looking for a Group Procurement Manager to build and lead Astera's procurement capability across our UK restaurant and bar operations.
This is initially a standalone role with significant ownership. You will set the approach and personally deliver the work, operating comfortably between strategic sourcing and the detail of price files, supplier negotiations, product specifications and purchasing data.
The initial priority is food and beverage procurement across our managed hospitality and catering businesses, together with packaging, consumables and other operational categories where coordinated buying can create value.
The opportunity is substantial. Purchasing currently takes place across businesses with different suppliers, specifications and operating requirements. Your job is to create visibility, identify where aggregation or standardisation makes commercial sense, negotiate stronger arrangements and ensure the benefits actually reach the P&L.
You will work closely with Finance, Culinary and operational leaders to improve gross margins and purchasing discipline without compromising food quality, guest experience, operational resilience or the specialist requirements of individual concepts and catering customers.
This is not simply a buying role and it is not about finding the lowest price. It is about building a practical procurement capability that gives Astera better value, quality, consistency, supply resilience and commercial control as the group grows.
WHAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE IN YOUR FIRST 12 MONTHS
- Create clear visibility of group purchasing – Build a reliable view of spend by business, site, category, product and supplier. Identify pricing inconsistencies, fragmented purchasing, duplicated suppliers and the largest opportunities for improvement.
- Deliver measurable savings and margin improvement – Establish an agreed procurement opportunity pipeline and personally take priorities from analysis through sourcing, negotiation, implementation and benefits tracking. Savings must be evidenced in actual purchasing and financial performance, not simply negotiated on paper.
- Strengthen commercial terms – Benchmark key categories and renegotiate pricing, rebates, payment terms, delivery arrangements, minimum-order requirements and other commercial conditions where appropriate.
- Create a coordinated supplier strategy – Establish preferred suppliers and product ranges where consolidation creates value, while preserving specialist sourcing where it is important to a concept, customer or product.
- Embed procurement into culinary development – Work with Culinary and operational teams on recipe costs, specifications, yields, pack sizes and alternative sourcing so new menus and products are designed with quality and commercial viability in mind.
- Improve supplier performance and supply resilience – Introduce clearer expectations and performance management across quality, availability, delivery, service and pricing. Identify material supply risks and ensure appropriate alternatives or contingency arrangements exist.
- Support Astera's growth – Establish an effective procurement approach for new openings, mobilisations and projects so products, suppliers, pricing and commercial terms are ready before trading begins.
- Establish useful procurement reporting and governance – Give leadership clear visibility of savings delivered, cost movements, supplier performance, compliance, risks and the next set of commercial opportunities.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Procurement Strategy & Category Management
- Develop a practical procurement strategy aligned with Astera's commercial and operational priorities.
- Prioritise categories according to spend, margin opportunity, business risk and implementation complexity.
- Lead sourcing, quotation and competitive tender exercises where appropriate.
- Monitor food, beverage and commodity markets and provide early warning of significant cost movements.
- Identify opportunities for supplier consolidation, SKU rationalisation and volume leverage without unnecessary standardisation.
- Lead negotiations with key suppliers covering price, rebates, service levels, payment terms and contractual conditions.
- Establish clear supplier agreements and maintain appropriate visibility of contracts, renewal dates and commercial commitments.
- Develop strategic relationships with important suppliers while maintaining competitive tension.
- Monitor supplier performance and address recurring issues in quality, availability, service, delivery or commercial compliance.
- Evaluate value on a total-cost basis rather than unit price alone.
- Partner closely with Culinary, Finance and Operations on ingredient and product cost management.
- Analyse the commercial impact of specifications, yields, pack sizes, substitutions and sourcing choices.
- Support menu engineering and product development through accurate and current purchasing information.
- Challenge cost increases and investigate unexplained price or margin movements.
- Protect quality and brand standards while identifying commercially sensible alternatives.
Purchasing Discipline, Governance & Risk
- Introduce straightforward procurement policies and controls appropriate to a fast-moving hospitality business.
- Improve compliance with preferred suppliers, agreed products and negotiated pricing.
- Work with Finance to identify invoice and pricing discrepancies, recover credits and ensure negotiated benefits are realised.
- Ensure appropriate supplier due diligence and compliance with relevant food safety, quality, legal and contractual requirements.
- Identify key supply-chain dependencies and develop contingency options for business-critical products.
- Own the procurement workstream for relevant new sites, catering operations and major projects.
- Establish product requirements, supplier arrangements, pricing and opening supply plans in advance of launch.
- Work with Culinary and Operations to prevent late specification changes, unnecessary complexity and avoidable opening costs.
- Apply learning from each mobilisation to subsequent openings.
Data, Systems & Reporting
- Establish accurate supplier, product and pricing data and improve visibility of purchasing activity.
- Work with Finance and Technology to improve procurement processes, reporting and purchasing controls.
- Track savings from identified opportunity through implementation to realised financial benefit.
- Produce concise regular reporting covering savings, inflation, supplier performance, compliance, risks and outstanding opportunities.
EXPERIENCE & CAPABILITY
- Strong procurement experience within a multi-site restaurant, hospitality, catering, foodservice or food production business.
- Direct responsibility for meaningful food and beverage spend.
- A proven record of personally negotiating supplier agreements and delivering measurable cost savings and margin improvement.
- Strong understanding of ingredients, specifications, recipe costing, pack sizes, yields and the relationship between procurement decisions and gross margin.
- Experience of strategic sourcing, competitive tendering, contract negotiation and supplier performance management.
- Strong analytical capability and advanced working knowledge of Excel or equivalent data tools.
- The ability to turn large amounts of purchasing data into clear priorities and commercial action.
- Experience supporting new openings, mobilisations or significant operational growth.
- Strong commercial judgement: knowing where consolidation creates value and where specialist supply or flexibility is important.
- Credibility with chefs and operators, combined with the confidence to challenge existing practices constructively.
- The ability to operate autonomously, organise competing priorities and follow decisions through to implementation.
- Broader experience across packaging, consumables, beverages and other hospitality operating categories would be advantageous.
- A CIPS qualification or equivalent procurement training would be useful but is less important than relevant commercial experience and a strong record of delivery.
THE PERSON
This role will suit someone who is commercially rigorous, analytical and highly practical. You should be comfortable building structure where little currently exists and operating as a procurement team of one initially.
You need sufficient seniority to challenge suppliers and internal stakeholders, but no reluctance to work directly with price lists, purchasing data, invoices and product specifications yourself.
You will understand that successful hospitality procurement requires judgement. The objective is not maximum standardisation or the cheapest product. It is to secure the right balance of quality, service, availability, risk and cost for each part of the business.
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