The hire you are worried about

The business has always sold through broadline and now wants to go direct to chains, or the other way round, and the current leadership only knows one of those motions.

Or volume has become unpredictable because traffic has, and the operating model was built for a demand pattern that no longer exists.

Why foodservice is different

Your customer is solving a labour problem, not a shopping problem. Products win here because they take steps out of a kitchen that cannot recruit, not because of what the pack says. A commercial leader who pitches on consumer benefits is speaking the wrong language.

Broadline distribution puts a layer between you and the operator. Sysco, US Foods and Performance Food Group decide what gets carried, and the relationship with a distributor sales representative is a real channel that most retail-trained leaders have never had to work.

Demand follows traffic, and traffic follows things nobody controls. Weather, fuel prices, whether an anchor chain is discounting. You are absorbing volatility with a fixed plant.

Pack formats and spec are brutal on the operations side. Bulk, portion control, yields that matter to a chef counting plate cost. A small spec change can kill a listing you spent a year winning.

What I screen for

I want to know whether they have sat in a distributor's sales meeting and tried to get their product into a rep's bag. That is the job, and either they have done it or they have not.

For chain accounts I want to hear about a limited time offer they supported end to end, including what broke, because those compress every operational weakness into about six weeks.

On operations I want somebody who thinks in plate cost and yield, not just line efficiency. Those point in different directions more often than people expect.

Where I draw the line

I will not present a retail-only commercial record as foodservice experience because the company also had a foodservice division. I will ask which customers they personally carried, and I will tell you the answer.

Roles I run

Director to C-suite. Commercial and national accounts, operations, supply chain, culinary and product development, finance, general management.

How the search runs

I do every step myself, from the briefing to the first ninety days after the offer, because there is nobody else here. More about how I work.

Tell me what you are trying to hire

I will tell you straight whether I am the right person for it. Book a 30 minute call, or email scott@williams-recruitment.com.