Location: San Marcos, CA
In Office Salary: $80,000–$105,000 per year, depending on experience, plus bonus plan
Job Type: Full-Time
Schedule: Monday–Friday, with occasional flexibility as needed
Travel: Primarily local, with occasional travel to one or two industry trade shows per year
About Veruca
Veruca is changing the way people shop for groceries. We deliver Costco favorites and everyday essentials in 30 minutes, at the same warehouse prices, with no membership required.
We are a fast-growing grocery startup that owns our inventory, fulfillment, delivery, and customer experience from start to finish. As we expand, we are looking for a strong negotiator and relationship builder who can help us develop direct partnerships with the brands and producers whose products we sell.
Important: this role requires hands-on grocery, food & beverage, or CPG industry experience. We are not able to consider candidates whose background is limited to unrelated industries (e.g., general retail, industrial wholesale, SaaS, or B2B services), even with strong sales, negotiation, or purchasing experience elsewhere. If that's not your background, please don't apply, but if you've spent years getting brands, distributors, or producers onto retail shelves or into purchasing agreements, keep reading.
About the Role
This is not a traditional supply chain or procurement position.
We are looking for someone who loves making deals, opening doors, building relationships, and finding creative ways to improve profitability, specifically within food, beverage, and consumer products.
Your primary responsibility will be reaching out directly to food, beverage, household, personal care, and other consumer brands that Veruca currently sells, or would like to sell, and turning those conversations into profitable, long-term purchasing partnerships.
You will identify the right decision-makers, introduce them to Veruca, communicate our value as a growing retail partner, and negotiate opportunities such as direct purchasing, improved pricing, volume discounts, rebates, promotional funding, payment terms, product launches, and exclusive offers.
Once a partnership is established, you will remain the primary owner of the relationship. You will continue growing the account, negotiating new opportunities, managing purchasing, and ensuring the partnership delivers value for both Veruca and the brand.
This role requires someone who is equally comfortable initiating a cold conversation with a national manufacturer, developing trust with a local food producer, negotiating the details of an agreement, and using sales and purchasing data to demonstrate why a partnership makes sense.
Success in this role will be measured by the quality of the relationships you build, the agreements you secure, and the measurable improvement you create in Veruca's gross margins.
What You'll Do:
Build Direct Brand and Supplier Partnerships
- Proactively identify and contact brands whose products Veruca currently sells.
- Find and build relationships with the appropriate sales, wholesale, distribution, or business-development contacts within each organization.
- Present Veruca's business model, customer base, growth plans, and value as a retail partner.
- Develop direct purchasing relationships with national brands, emerging CPG companies, distributors, local producers, farms, growers, ranches, and specialty suppliers.
- Build a strong pipeline of prospective brand and supplier partnerships.
- Attend vendor meetings, local industry events, and relevant trade shows.
- Represent Veruca professionally and persuasively to potential partners.
Negotiate Profitable Agreements
- Negotiate direct pricing, volume discounts, rebates, promotional allowances, payment terms, freight arrangements, and long-term purchasing agreements.
- Identify opportunities to reduce product costs and improve gross margins across Veruca's assortment.
- Secure vendor-funded promotions, samples, introductory offers, product-launch support, and cooperative marketing opportunities.
- Evaluate proposed agreements based on pricing, margin, volume requirements, operational feasibility, and long-term value.
- Work through contracts and supplier agreements from initial conversation through execution.
- Continually revisit existing agreements to identify additional savings and growth opportunities.
Own and Grow Vendor Relationships
- Serve as the primary point of contact for assigned brands and suppliers.
- Maintain regular communication with partners rather than treating agreements as one-time transactions.
- Develop a strong understanding of each partner's goals, products, challenges, and upcoming initiatives.
- Identify new opportunities to expand product selection, improve terms, increase purchasing volume, or collaborate on promotions.
- Address pricing, availability, quality, and service issues directly with suppliers.
- Track supplier performance and hold partners accountable to agreed-upon terms.
- Build relationships that become more valuable as Veruca grows.
Manage Purchasing and Execution
- Transition negotiated agreements into an effective ongoing purchasing process.
- Place and manage purchase orders across assigned suppliers and product categories.
- Coordinate product availability, order quantities, lead times, delivery schedules, and replenishment needs.
- Review sales and inventory data to make informed purchasing decisions.
- Maintain strong in-stock levels while limiting excess inventory, waste, and unnecessary cash tied up in products.
- Work closely with Operations to ensure purchasing agreements can be executed successfully.
- Maintain organized records of pricing, terms, agreements, contacts, and purchasing activity.
Support Product and Business Growth
- Analyze product sales, costs, margins, purchasing patterns, and vendor performance.
- Identify high-volume products that present the greatest opportunity for direct brand relationships or improved pricing.
- Research emerging food, grocery, and consumer-product trends.
- Recommend new products and brands that fit Veruca's customers and business model.
- Partner with Marketing on brand launches, supplier-funded promotions, featured products, and content highlighting vendor relationships.
- Communicate partnership wins and margin opportunities clearly to company leadership.
- Help build the processes and systems Veruca will use to manage a much larger supplier network as the company expands.
Qualifications
- Required: at least three years of hands-on experience specifically within grocery, food & beverage, or CPG (consumer packaged goods) — for example as a grocery/CPG buyer, category manager, vendor or account manager, food broker, distributor sales rep, or brand sales representative calling on retailers. General retail, wholesale, or procurement experience outside of food/grocery/CPG does not meet this requirement.
- At least three years of experience in business development, wholesale sales, brand partnerships, account management, category management, buying, sourcing, or vendor development, within that industry.
- Demonstrated success initiating new business relationships and turning outreach into signed agreements or revenue-producing partnerships.
- Proven experience negotiating pricing, commercial terms, supplier agreements, or customer contracts.
- A strong understanding of product margins and how purchasing terms affect profitability.
- Experience maintaining and growing long-term business relationships.
- Comfortable conducting outbound outreach by phone, email, LinkedIn, industry events, and other channels.
- Strong communication, presentation, persuasion, and negotiation skills.
- Confident communicating with everyone from local business owners to national brand representatives.
- Strong analytical skills and comfort working with purchasing, inventory, sales, and margin data.
- Highly organized, persistent, resourceful, and attentive to detail.
- Comfortable working in a fast-moving startup where processes are still being built and priorities may evolve.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
- Experience managing inventory and purchase orders is strongly preferred.
- Bachelor's degree preferred but not required when supported by relevant experience and results.
The Ideal Candidate
You are a natural relationship builder who is not afraid to make the first call.
You enjoy researching a company, finding the right decision-maker, starting a conversation, and explaining why a partnership makes business sense. You are persistent without being overly aggressive, and you know how to move a conversation from an introduction to a negotiated agreement.
You are energized by the process of making a deal. You ask thoughtful questions, understand what matters to the other party, and look for solutions that create value for both sides.
You also understand that signing an agreement is only the beginning. You take ownership of the relationship, follow through on commitments, manage the details, and continue finding opportunities to strengthen the partnership over time.
You can balance relationship-building with financial discipline. You understand margins, purchasing economics, and the importance of securing terms that make sense for a growing grocery business.
Most importantly, you are excited by the opportunity to build something in the grocery/CPG space. You do not need every process to already exist, you want to help create it.
What This Role Is Not
This is not a warehouse, logistics, freight, or supply-chain planning role. It is also not the right fit for someone whose relevant experience comes from outside grocery, food & beverage, or CPG, no matter how strong their general sales or purchasing background is.
Although purchasing, inventory, and purchase-order management are part of the position, the core of this job is proactive business development: contacting brands, building relationships, negotiating agreements, improving margins, and turning those agreements into successful long-term partnerships.
Candidates whose experience is primarily focused on logistics, demand planning, warehouse operations, or purchase-order administration without demonstrated negotiation and relationship-development experience or whose industry background is outside grocery/food & beverage/CPG are unlikely to be the right fit.
Why Join Veruca?
This is a unique opportunity to build the supplier partnership function of a rapidly growing grocery startup.
You will not inherit a narrow list of existing accounts and simply maintain them. You will have the opportunity to decide which brands Veruca approaches, shape how we present ourselves to the industry, negotiate meaningful agreements, and build relationships that can grow alongside the company.
Your work will directly affect Veruca's product assortment, gross margins, customer offers, marketing opportunities, and overall profitability.
You will work closely with company leadership and have the ability to see the immediate impact of the partnerships and agreements you create.
Compensation and Benefits
- $85,000–$105,000 annual salary, depending on experience
- Structured bonus plan
- Paid Time Off
- California Paid Sick Leave
- Opportunity for one flexible work-from-home day per week after onboarding and training
- Professional development and industry networking opportunities
- Direct access to company leadership
- Significant opportunity for professional growth as the company expands
Benefits:
- Flexible schedule
- Paid time off
- Retirement plan
Pay: $85,000.00 - $105,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Employee discount
- Flexible schedule
- Paid time off
- Retirement plan
Application Question(s):
- Describe your experience working directly with food, beverage, grocery, or CPG brands — including your specific role, employer(s), and how many years this covers.
- Tell us about a business relationship you personally initiated and developed into a signed agreement or ongoing account.
- What did you negotiate, and what measurable result did the agreement create?
- How do you typically identify and reach the right decision-maker at a company where you do not already have a relationship?
- Are you comfortable working primarily in person from our San Marcos office?
Work Location: In person
