Director of Planning

Job Title: Director of Planning

Reports to: President/CEO

Location: Onsite- Williamstown, NJ

Status: Full-time/Exempt

About the Company:

Violet Foods is a private equity-backed tomato platform built through a series of strategic acquisitions that combine heritage Italian-inspired brands with a leading organic offering. The company was formed in 2025 through the acquisition of the Don Pepino®, Sclafani®, and Fattoria Fresca® brands, along with a manufacturing facility in Williamstown, NJ. The company’s name honors the 100+ year legacy of Violet Packing, the original producer behind these iconic labels. In early 2026, Violet Foods expanded its platform with the acquisition of Muir Glen®, the leading organic canned tomato brand in the United States, further strengthening its position across both conventional and organic categories.

Today, Violet Foods operates a diversified portfolio spanning legacy regional brands and category-leading organic offerings, with distribution across retail, natural, private label, and foodservice channels, supported by a scalable manufacturing and supply chain footprint positioned for continued growth and optimization.

Role Overview:

The Director of Planning is responsible for leading demand planning, supply planning, inventory management, and production coordination across Violet Foods’ manufacturing and co-manufacturing network. This role plays a critical part in ensuring product availability, optimizing inventory levels, and supporting operational efficiency across multiple channels and customers.

This leader will partner cross-functionally with Sales, Operations, Procurement, Finance, Customer Service, and external manufacturing partners to build scalable planning processes that support growth, improve forecast accuracy, and drive service excellence in a fast-paced CPG environment.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and continuously improve the company’s end-to-end demand and supply planning processes across internal manufacturing operations and external co-manufacturing partners.
• Own the development and execution of rolling demand forecasts, supply plans, and production schedules to support customer demand, inventory targets, and operational capacity constraints.
• Drive the company’s Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process, facilitating cross-functional alignment across Sales, Finance, Operations, Procurement, Customer Service, and Supply Chain teams.
• Develop inventory strategies that optimize working capital while maintaining high customer service levels across retail, natural, private label, and food-service channels.
• Monitor and manage inventory health, including inventory aging, safety stock levels, lot code tracking, reconciliation activities, and mitigation plans for excess or obsolete inventory.
• Coordinate production priorities and replenishment activities with manufacturing facilities, co-manufacturers, warehouses, and logistics partners to ensure continuity of supply and operational efficiency.
• Oversee customer order fulfillment performance, ensuring accurate, on-time, and in-full delivery execution while proactively addressing service risks and operational disruptions.
• Partner with internal and external teams to resolve order execution issues, shipping delays, allocation challenges, deductions, and service recovery needs.
• Manage and optimize planning-related ERP workflows, EDI transactions, master data integrity, and reporting processes to support scalable operational execution.
• Analyze forecasting trends, demand variability, inventory performance, production attainment, and service metrics to identify operational risks and continuous improvement opportunities.
• Develop and track KPIs related to forecast accuracy, fill rates, inventory turns, customer service levels, production adherence, and supply chain efficiency.
• Support new product commercialization, product transitions, and customer onboarding activities by coordinating inventory builds, production timing, and launch readiness planning.
• Partner closely with Procurement and Operations teams to proactively identify and mitigate supply chain risks, capacity constraints, and fulfillment challenges.
• Build scalable planning processes, reporting capabilities, and operational controls to support rapid growth within a dynamic, private equity-backed CPG portfolio.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Business, Operations, or related field.
• 7–10 years of progressive experience in demand planning, supply planning, production planning, or supply chain operations within a CPG or food manufacturing environment.
• Strong understanding of S&OP, forecasting, inventory management, and production planning best practices.
• Experience working with co-manufacturers and external supply chain partners preferred.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel.
• Experience with ERP systems and planning tools; ERP implementation experience is a plus.
• Hands-on experience with order management and EDI transactions preferred.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively across departments and with external partners.
• Proven ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced, growth-oriented environment.