Fresh Food Field Specialist

Job Req ID

10803

Closing Date

12 December 2025

OME

Location

Sandton 

Purpose of Job

The Fresh Food Field Specialist is responsible for driving profitability, operational excellence, and food safety compliance across franchised convenience retail stores. The role is primarily field-based (approximately 90%) and focuses on supporting franchisees through operational guidance, training, merchandising, and adherence to food safety and Sasol standards

Ascertain that the franchisee increases profitability and secure adherence to food safety requirements.

Key Accountabilities

• Operations & Store Performance • Optimize convenience store performance across approximately +/-300 sites. • Conduct regular site visits and inspections focusing on food safety, quality, merchandising, and operational compliance. • Ensure adherence to South African food safety regulations and Sasol safety standards. • Identify operational gaps, perform root cause analysis, and implement corrective actions. • Roll out and maintain Bakery and Fresh Food planograms to improve efficiency and sales. • Execute the Convenience Retail strategy at site level. • Financial & Commercial Management • Analyse store sales, turnover, margins, and sub-categories. • Provide franchisees with pricing and cost guidance to achieve margin targets. • Support initiatives to increase customer traffic, turnover growth, and profitability. • Training & Development • Organise, present, and oversee training programs for shop staff and management (food hygiene, bakery, customer service, supervisors). • Train new franchisees and store managers. • Maintain training records, competence certificates, and assessments. • Identify skills gaps and provide coaching and mentoring at site level. • Stakeholder & Franchisee Management • Build and maintain strong working relationships with franchisees, suppliers, and internal stakeholders (RAMs, Training, Maintenance, IT). • Act as a Sasol Ambassador, ensuring credibility and consistent standards across the retail network. • Provide field intelligence and performance feedback to internal teams. • Store Openings, Promotions & Projects • Support new store openings, including supplier setup, equipment commissioning, and opening stock. • Coordinate promotional activities with suppliers and ensure in-store compliance. • Ensure POS systems, scanners, and barcodes function correctly before trading. • Benchmark competitor stores, pricing, and merchandising practices. • Handle and improve operation sites of fresh food. • Roll out bakery and food planograms to stores. Enhance operating procedures on an on-going basis or improve operational efficiency at the site level if required. • Follow call cycle procedures, capture activities, and email concerns to relevant parties. • Execute programmes developed by other functions to secure that Sasol Group achieves its leadership target in the market. • Act as Sasol Group ambassador to build credibility of the company. • Create and enforce food safety processes as required by South African regulations and standards. • Arrange food safety audits and corrective action process. Conduct quality control of products as required. Work closely with SHEQ to identify risks and set controls in place. • Verify that reporting and control procedures at store level are in place and conform to company’s policies and procedures. • Confirm that suppliers adhere to product specifications and food safety standards.

Key Accountabilities Continued

• Audit suppliers that meet minimum standards and requirements. Approve and register new suppliers. • Inspect and resolve customer complaints. • Guarantee effective roll-out of new projects and their consistency throughout the retail network as per segmentation. • Keep teams informed and up to date on food safety procedures, new legislation, and other requirements. • Organise and oversee training programmes for shop staff including food safety. Supervise training of bakery and customer service training. Train new franchisees and managers. • Assess trainees as per company requirements. Determine training needs gaps. Prepare presentation of training programmes. • Maintain training records, competence certificates, and schedules of personnel. • Assist stores in opening accounts with suppliers and ordering opening stock. • Assure that store equipment is delivered and commissioned by contractors. • Coordinating store opening activities with suppliers e.g. promotions. • Work with IT consultants to confirm that pay point systems and bar codes are working. • Check accuracy of promotions at sites. • Carry out bi-weekly performance meetings with QA and NPD Manager regarding sites and supplier visit reports, operational issues, results of food safety audit, and general presentations. • Apply evidence-based SHE practices in alignment with set standards for safe operations. • Implement Sasol Group's risk philosophy and enterprise risk management framework. • Build and maintain positive relationships with internal and external stakeholders including operations, training, customer care, and maintenance departments as well as supplier management and franchisee management to resolve problems effectively. • Continuously improve own skills and knowledge. Complete, implement, and track personal development plan to attain personal performance goals.

Formal Education

University Bachelor’s Degree

Min Experience

• Minimum 3–5 years’ retail experience, with at least 2 years in retailing
• (or 6+ years relevant experience in food retail, franchise, bakery, or coffee industry)
• Technical Skills & Knowledge
• Fresh food operations and food safety compliance
• Convenience store and FMCG retail experience
• Planogram implementation and merchandising
• Sales, margin, and waste management analysis
• Point of Sale (POS) systems knowledge
• Strong reporting and administrative capability
• Key Competencies
• Strong people and stakeholder management skills
• Excellent communication and facilitation abilities
• Assertive, decisive, and results-driven
• Self-motivated, adaptable, and able to work independently in a field-based role
• Business and partnership leadership mindset

Required Personal and Professional Skills