Founded in 2003 Wasabi’s vision is to lovingly create and serve delicious Asian food for a busy nation.
Wasabi now has 42 thriving restaurants across London and major UK cities and 4 in New York and in 2019, we introduced Wasabi Home Bento the grocery channel, launching exclusively in Sainsbury’s. Building on that success, the grocery business broadened its reach to Tesco in September 2022, followed by exciting launches in Co‑op and Morrisons in 2024. Wasabi grocery has seen phenomenal growth and is now a £62m RSV brand. Wasabi proudly stands as the No. 2 chilled ready‑meal brand in the market, consistently attracting new customers to the category through an innovative East Asian range.
Wasabi’s menu is celebrated for its unique character, exceptional freshness, and bold flavours. Our diverse range is designed to delight a wide audience, delivering both comfort and excitement with every bite.
We have an ambitious 5‑year growth strategy, focusing on new restaurants, franchise partnerships, and international expansion.
As we prepare for our next phase of growth and innovation, we have an incredibly exciting opportunity for a National Account Manager to join our Grocery Team based in Park Royal. This is a 6‑month fixed term contract role.
The Role
This role will be responsible for leading commercial relationships with our key national retail customers. You will be responsible for driving sales growth, profitability, and category performance through strategic account planning, negotiation, and execution. You will ensure that the brand and commercial strategies are effectively delivered while maximizing distribution, visibility, and promotional impact.
Key Responsibilities
Commercial & Account Management
- Manage and grow strategic relationships with our national retail accounts.
- Develop and execute joint business plans (JBPs), including annual negotiations, pricing, and trade terms.
- Ensure that all data, information, and admin required to support the customer relationship is rigorously and robustly managed.
- Lead business reviews with your customers to track performance and identify new opportunities.
- Grow your network and engagement across retail customer teams.
- P&L management – deliver sales, volume and margin targets for your customers.
- Ownership of the commercial P&L for your customer, ensure budgets are met and we are investing in the right areas to drive business growth.
- Manage investment budgets (shopper, trade spend, promo, ORD) ensuring maximum ROI.
- Drive distribution gains, shelf visibility, and compliance with agreed plans.
- Identify and action growth opportunities and risk mitigation strategies.
Forecasting & Planning
- Undertake sales analysis and reporting for your accounts using internal systems, customer data, and category insight tools.
- Build accurate bottom‑up customer forecasts for review in internal S&OP process – lead and present M2 meets (customer demand meet) as part of S&OP process.
- Align customer plans with internal commercial and brand strategies.
- Field sales – planning, managing budget for most effective ROI, implementing, and reporting for your account.
Cross‑Functional Collaboration
- Work closely with marketing, category, supply chain, and finance teams to ensure strong customer execution.
- Partner with demand planning to maintain high service levels and in‑store availability and forecast accuracy.
- Share insights on customer needs, competitor activity, and category trends.
- Be the commercial lead on ad hoc assigned projects (eg. NPD, EPD, new categories, new customers).
- Support in the evolution and improvement of key business processes and control documents.
- Embed Seiyaku ESG commitments (Net Zero, Sustainable Sourcing, Reduce Waste, Socially Responsible) into customer joint business plans, identifying and delivering initiatives that support both commercial growth and ESG targets.
Category & Insight‑Led Selling
- Use sales, insight and category data (IRI, Kantar etc.) to build compelling stories for customers.
- Monitor market performance, promotional activity, and category dynamics.
- Recommend improvements to product mix, pricing, and promotional strategy.
Our Requirements
- Proven experience managing branded FMCG grocery accounts.
- Commercially astute.
- Good understanding & appreciation of supporting functions (supply chain, food, procurement etc).
- Ability to build strong business relationships and mutually profitable business solutions.
- Adaptable and agile with excellent organisation and project management skills.
- Ability to use data and insights to solve problems and identify opportunities.
- Pro‑active with growth‑orientated mindset.
- Experience in short shelf life chilled highly desirable.
- Experience and confidence using Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.
Benefits
- A great working environment.
- Refer A Friend Scheme.
- Free Sushi or hot food (vegan options available).
- 50% discount in our Branches.
- Employee Assistant Programme.
- Help@Hand (a service providing health and wellbeing support).
- Wagestream – a financial wellbeing benefit that lets you access your pay as you earn it in real time and manage savings.
- Electric Vehicle Scheme through Octopus.
- Free on‑site parking.
- A variety of discounts (shopping, food & drink, entertainment and health & fitness) through Perkbox.
- The opportunity to develop your skills within a growing company.
(*please note that certain benefits may not apply to fixed term contracts)
Our people make us who we are. If you’re looking for an exciting challenge and this sounds like the job for you please apply today as we can’t wait to hear from you.
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