Come and work for an Australian owned and operated business that's been around for 170 years!
We are looking for a Procurement – Contract Manager to work with our team located in Altona.
HSK Ward Group is an Australian-owned and operated company who has been trusted for six generations! As a consumer, you will know us as McKenzie’s.
McKenzie’s provides essential ingredients to create precious food memories to savor with family and friends. You’ll find our ingredients in major and independent retailers.
In the Foodservice and Industrial environments, you may know us as FTA Food Solutions.
FTA Food Solutions is a major supply-chain solutions-based importer and distributor of food products for the Australian, New Zealand and export markets.
About the role
Reporting to the Procurement Director, the Procurement Specialist is responsible for maintaining and growing defined product categories, with a focus on strengthening supplier relationships and driving commercial outcomes.
The role ensures best-practice buying, pricing benchmarking, and supports continuous improvement across the category. It also contributes to enhancing results by identifying cost-saving opportunities and aligning procurement activities with broader business goals.
A key focus of this position is commercial contract negotiation, including drafting supply agreements, managing contractual risk and ensuring strong commercial outcomes across our global supplier base.
Key responsibilities:
* Manage a category of products, ensuring procurement activities align with category strategies and business needs.
* Develop subject matter expertise across assigned product category.
* Lead the end-to-end negotiation, drafting, and execution of supplier agreements, including pricing contracts, long-term supply agreements, exclusivity clauses, quality agreements, confidentiality agreements and service level commitments.
* Draft, negotiate, and revise contract terms to ensure clarity on obligations, commercial expectations, delivery conditions, liability, quality compliance, termination rights, and performance metrics.
* Conduct contractual risk assessments, ensuring adequate protection around pricing, quality, delivery, liabilities, service levels, and termination clauses.
* Maintain governance over contract lifecycle management ensuring all agreements are stored, updated, renewed, and reviewed systematically.
* Monitor competitor products and market strategies to identify commercial opportunities
* Ensure all products meet HSK Ward Group’s Food Safety & Quality and Operational specifications.
* Promote compliance with standardised procurement processes across the organisation
* Identify opportunities to improve category profitability through cost optimisation, value led sourcing, and presenting innovation in assigned product category.
* Support margin improvement initiatives by negotiating competitive pricing, leveraging market intelligence, and aligning procurement strategies with commercial goals.
About you
The ideal candidate will have been working within FMCG, Manufacturing/Wholesale or Retail environments for a minimum of 3 years.
More specifically, the ideal candidate will have:
* Tertiary qualification in Business or relevant qualification.
* Demonstrated expertise in contract negotiation, contract drafting, and supplier agreement management.
* Practical experience in a Procurement environment ideally in the commodity sector.
* Proven experience in strategic sourcing, supplier negotiation, and category management within the food industry.
* Strong understanding of global supply chains, import regulations, and food safety standards (e.g., HACCP, FSANZ).
* Deep knowledge of supply market dynamics and risk factors affecting food imports with proficiency in conducting supplier due diligence, risk assessments, and implementing mitigation strategies.
* Demonstrated ability to cope with high volume workload and achieve set deadlines within a commercial environment.
* Advanced PC, Windows and Microsoft application skills.
* Well-developed interpersonal, communication and problem-solving skills.
* Proven stakeholder management skills.
* The ability to work autonomously and with minimal supervision.
* Highly motivated with a ‘can do’ attitude.
To apply
To apply for this position, please send your resume in word format by clicking apply.
Only applications from Australian & New Zealand citizens, permanent residents and those holding valid visas allowing them to work in Australia will be considered.
At HSK Ward it is our mission to be an industry leader in sustainability. We are proudly certified as a carbon neutral organisation under the Climate Active standard and work actively to reduce the carbon footprints of our products. We are committed to ethical sourcing and ensure the integrity of our products through membership to numerous external organisations. We are also dedicated to reducing our waste and embrace circular economy initiatives, where we achieve a 90% recycling rate through innovative waste processing solutions.