About Simple Company
Simple Company is a UK manufacturer and brand developer of sports nutrition, supplements and wellness products, with its own facility of more than 12,500 sq ft at Gatwick. Brands come to us to create a product or a range, and we take it from the first formulation to a finished product, packed and on its way.
We make powders, sachets and stick packs, liquids, gels, bars, gummies, capsules, tablets and topicals in-house. Alongside white-label and private-label products for customer brands, we develop our own brands, led by STYRKR: endurance sports nutrition sold through styrkr.com, Amazon and trade partners.
The Role
You'll be the person who drives our projects from idea to launch. Most of your time goes on new product development: STYRKR launches and range changes, and white-label and private-label products for our customers' brands. You'll also manage and monitor projects across the wider business.
Our launches depend on several teams finishing their part in the right order: formulation and testing in NPD, packaging and artwork in Creative, launch plans in Marketing, and purchasing and production in Operations. You'll hold the plan that joins them up, so every team knows what it owes, by when, and what happens to the launch date if it slips.
You don't need to be a formulator or a designer. You do need to understand enough of each team's work to ask the right questions, spot a risk early and keep decisions moving.
Key responsibilities1. NPD project delivery
- Run each new product project through our six-stage Simple Process: Discovery, NPD, Proposal, Approval, Production and fulfilment, and NPD analysis
- Build and own each project plan: milestones, dependencies, critical path and launch date, covering formulation, samples, stability and shelf-life testing, artwork, packaging, compliance sign-off and the first production run
- Hold stage-gate reviews so a project moves on only when it's ready, with a clear go, hold or stop decision and an owner for every action
- Work with Purchasing on raw-material and packaging lead times and MOQs, so launch dates are realistic from the start
2. White-label and private-label customer projects
- Run customer projects once they're won, working closely with Sales and account managers, who remain the customer's main contact
- Keep Sales and account managers updated on timelines, samples, artwork approvals and production slots; raise risks early and confirm changes in writing
- Manage changes to scope and their effect on cost and timing, with Sales and Finance
3. STYRKR projects
- Plan STYRKR launches and range changes with Marketing, so product, artwork, stock, styrkr.com and Amazon listings and campaigns all land on the agreed date
4. Coordinating design, marketing and production
- Run regular project meetings with NPD, Creative, Marketing and Operations; agree actions and owners, and follow them through
- Brief Creative on packaging and artwork, and manage proofs and approvals, including compliance checks of label copy with NPD & Compliance
- Work with Operations to make sure production has everything it needs: approved specifications, bills of materials set up in NetSuite, packaging in stock and a confirmed production slot
5. Wider business projects
- Keep the company's project portfolio in Monday.com up to date, with owner, dates, status, risks and issues for every project
- Monitor wider projects such as systems, process and site changes, and report progress to the leadership team
- Spot clashes for shared resources (lab time, design capacity, production slots) early and help leaders decide priorities
6. Reporting and improvement
- Produce a weekly project status update and a monthly portfolio summary for the leadership team
- Track measures such as launches delivered on the agreed date, time from brief to launch, and late changes to specifications or artwork
- Run a review after every launch and build the lessons into our templates, checklists and process
About youEssential
- 3 to 5 years' experience managing new product development or launch projects, ideally in food, supplements, FMCG or another regulated consumer-goods business
- Experience running several projects at once, with dependencies across technical, creative and production teams
- Confident building and running project plans, with milestones, critical path and a risk and issue log, in Monday.com or a similar project management tool
- Experience using an ERP system, ideally NetSuite
- Comfortable keeping colleagues and stakeholders informed when plans change
- A clear communicator who follows up persistently, stays on good terms with colleagues and escalates early
- Highly organised, with close attention to detail on specifications, artwork and approvals
- Confident with Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets and Slides)
- A proactive self-starter and problem solver: you spot issues early, find practical fixes and act on them without waiting to be asked
Desirable
- Experience in contract manufacturing, white label or private label
- Knowledge of food and supplement labelling rules, including authorised nutrition and health claims and allergen labelling
- Experience of packaging and artwork workflows and print production
- A project management qualification, such as APM PMQ, PRINCE2 or a recognised Agile certificate
- An interest in sport, endurance or fitness
What we offer
- A role with real influence in a fast-growing business, with regular one-to-one mentoring from your line manager
- Variety: our own brands and our customers' brands mean every project is different
- Competitive salary and pension, holiday that grows with service, staff discount, company events, on-site parking and a casual dress code
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