Culinary Specialist

Sysco connects the world to share food and care for one another. Sysco leads from the heart of food and service to deliver the freshest of foods and ideas to restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments and other customers who prepare meals away from home. Our customers can count on us to deliver on-point products and solutions since only Sysco is the global leader, sitting at the heart of innovation supply, delivery, culinary and more.

The Culinary Specialist will be an ambassador for Sysco brand, innovation and Category Management (Sourced) products and will leverage all opportunities to close the sale with customers. This individual will represent Sysco at culinary events and in appropriate organizations in the industry. Specialists will prioritize time, targets, and team selling efforts based on market insights and data analytics. The incumbent will be a resource for both internal and external culinary sessions, customer events, workshops and trainings.
- Develop and execute targeted culinary strategies to achieve individual and region annual business goals, delivering profitable sales growth and penetration across categories, specialty segments, and Sysco brand.
- Coordinate with Director of Business Resources, leveraging data to identify top opportunities for business reviews.
- Collaborate with sales team partners to clearly identify customer challenges, needs, or opportunities and deliver creative and productive solutions to help grow customer business and drive case growth.
- Track activities and results, collaborate on opportunities, and champion the team selling process through use of Salesforce (Sysco's CRM tool).
- Leverage sampling in a solutions-oriented manner to close sales.
- Be informed of market conditions and trends, product innovations, and competitors' products, prices, and sales; share information with customers as part of value-added services provided.
- Facilitate internal/external food shows, catering and event planning activities.
- Coordinate kitchen logistics in support of internal/external culinary events.
- Lead, enable, and execute the Revolution Vendor program.
- Assist with employee training by working with sales to facilitate training sessions and complete demonstrations.
- Manage all operations of the test kitchen/culinary center including sanitation, product rotation, laundry service and the organization and upkeep of equipment, displays and the general appearance of the culinary facility.
- Manage test kitchen food and supply costs within budgetary parameters.
- Accompany and respond to regulatory agency kitchen/culinary center inspections.
- Enable and execute menu planning services.
- Supports a Customers First Mindset while carrying out daily duties.
- Complies with Sysco's Food Safety Policy and procedures to ensure food safety, quality and legality requirements are met.
- Is willing to work safely with mínimal environmental impact and understands the importance of reporting all hazards, incidents, and environmental spills immediately to their Supervisor.
- Understands that they play an integral role in their own safety and that of their colleagues and is willing to speak out when hazards are present.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
- Minimum of five (5+) years of Foodservice management or equivalent combination including a minimum of three (3) years as Executive Chef.
- Completion of post-secondary education, Minimum: Red Seal Chef with preferred Diploma in Culinary Management or Restaurant Management.
- Proficiency in culinary, restaurant operations, and food trends required (Internal Certification & External Certification may be required).
- Strong financial acumen and ability to properly plan and execute business plans.
- Track record of success in the area of consultative selling and networking.
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills and ability to work with and influence a variety of key stakeholders.
- Experience building trust with prospective customers and securing new business.
- Proactive and self-directed, with the ability to structure a weekly schedule to be successful.
- Demonstrated ability to deliver against deadlines and produce high-quality results (accuracy, thoroughness in the deliverables they are producing).
- Strong business and restaurant operations acumen to manage sophisticated customers.
- Ability to learn the use of proprietary CRM tools for planning and forecasting sales growth.
- Proficient in Microsoft Applications Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook).