Supply Chain Manager

Company: Global Gourmet Catering

Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Department: Operations / Culinary Operations

Reports To: Chief Operating Officer / Executive Leadership

Employment Type: Full-Time

About Global Gourmet Catering

Global Gourmet Catering is a leading Bay Area catering and events company known for delivering exceptional culinary experiences, large-scale events, and high-touch hospitality. Our operations require precision, creativity, flexibility, and exceptional coordination across culinary, operations, sales, finance, warehouse, and event teams.

We are seeking an experienced Supply Chain Manager to manage purchasing, inventory, vendor management, supply chain planning, and operational logistics across our catering, venue, and event operations.

This is a hands-on management role for someone who understands that catering supply chain is very different from traditional restaurant purchasing. Our needs change daily based on event menus, guest counts, venues, production schedules, and last-minute client changes. The right candidate knows how to build structure and controls while remaining agile enough to support a fast-moving events business.

Position Summary

The Supply Chain Manager is responsible for ensuring Global Gourmet has the right products, in the right quantities, at the right cost, in the right place, at the right time.

This position oversees the full procurement and supply chain lifecycle-from forecasting and purchasing to receiving, inventory management, warehouse coordination, event logistics, and post-event reconciliation.

A major responsibility of this position is using operations software to improve purchasing, recipe and ingredient management, production planning, inventory visibility, forecasting, and cost control.

The ideal candidate combines strong analytical and systems skills with real-world catering and event operations experience.

Key Responsibilities

Procurement & Purchasing

• Manage purchasing across food, beverage, disposables, smallwares, equipment, and other operational supplies.
• Develop purchasing strategies that balance product quality, availability, service levels, and cost.
• Manage purchase orders and ensure purchasing aligns with approved menus, recipes, production requirements, and event forecasts.
• Consolidate purchasing where appropriate to maximize volume pricing and reduce unnecessary deliveries.
• Identify purchasing trends, cost increases, product substitutions, and savings opportunities.
• Establish purchasing standards and approval processes across culinary and operations.
• Work closely with culinary leadership to maintain ingredient specifications and approved substitutions.
• Reduce emergency purchasing, unnecessary transfers, and last-minute sourcing through stronger planning and forecasting.

Software & Systems Management

• Serve as a key operational owner and subject matter expert for operations software.
• Maintain accurate ingredient, vendor, purchasing, recipe, pack-size, unit-of-measure, and pricing information within operations software.
• Utilize operations software to support purchasing, production planning, recipe costing, inventory management, and forecasting.
• Ensure purchasing and operational teams are consistently following established operations software workflows.
• Partner with Culinary, Operations, Venues, Finance, and other departments to improve data accuracy and system adoption.
• Develop reports and dashboards that provide leadership with visibility into purchasing, food costs, inventory, waste, and vendor performance.
• Identify opportunities to improve or automate workflows through operations software and other operational systems.

Galley experience strongly preferred; comparable culinary ERP/procurement system experience required

Vendor & Supplier Management

• Manage relationships with food, beverage, equipment, rental, packaging, and operational suppliers.
• Negotiate pricing, payment terms, delivery schedules, minimums, rebates, and service expectations.
• Maintain approved vendor and product lists.
• Develop backup suppliers and contingency plans for critical products.
• Monitor vendor performance including pricing accuracy, fill rates, product quality, substitutions, delivery accuracy, and responsiveness.
• Conduct regular vendor reviews and competitive bid processes.
• Partner with Finance to resolve invoice, pricing, credit, and purchasing discrepancies.

Inventory & Cost Control

• Develop and maintain inventory controls across culinary production, warehouse, and event operations.
• Establish appropriate PAR levels based on event volume, seasonality, lead times, and historical usage.
• Conduct and oversee regular physical inventories and cycle counts.
• Monitor food and supply usage against purchasing and event requirements.
• Identify and reduce over-ordering, spoilage, shrinkage, unnecessary substitutions, and excess inventory.
• Improve visibility into actual versus theoretical food and product costs.
• Partner with Culinary and Finance to identify margin improvement opportunities without compromising quality.

Catering & Event Supply Chain Planning

• Translate upcoming event requirements into purchasing, production, inventory, and logistics plans.
• Review future event volume, menus, guest counts, venues, and production requirements to anticipate purchasing needs.
• Coordinate closely with Culinary, Event Operations, Venues, Sales, and Warehouse teams as event details change.
• Develop processes for handling last-minute guest count changes, menu changes, product shortages, and event additions.
• Support simultaneous events across multiple venues and locations.
• Ensure event-specific products and supplies are purchased, received, staged, and distributed correctly.
• Work cross-functionally to improve communication between Sales, Culinary, Venues, Operations, Warehouse, and Finance.
• Participate in operational planning meetings and provide visibility into supply chain risks and opportunities.

Key Performance Indicators

Success in this position will be measured through improvements in:

• Food and supply cost as a percentage of revenue
• Purchasing savings and cost avoidance
• Inventory accuracy
• Inventory turns
• Waste, spoilage, and shrinkage
• Emergency and last-minute purchasing
• Vendor fill rates and delivery accuracy
• Purchase-order and invoice accuracy
• Operations software data accuracy and system adoption
• Event fulfillment accuracy
• On-time product availability
• Warehouse and logistics efficiency

Required Qualifications

• 3-5+ years of procurement, purchasing, supply chain, or logistics experience within catering, events, hospitality, foodservice, or a related industry.
• Galley experience strongly preferred; comparable culinary ERP/procurement system experience required
• Strong understanding of food purchasing, recipe ingredients, pack sizes, yields, substitutions, and food-cost management.
• Experience supporting high-volume and/or multi-event operations.
• Experience negotiating with foodservice distributors, specialty suppliers, and operational vendors.
• Strong inventory management and forecasting experience.
• Experience coordinating warehouse, receiving, distribution, and event logistics.
• Strong analytical and financial skills.
• Advanced Excel/Google Sheets skills and comfort working with operational data.
• Excellent organizational and project-management skills.
• Ability to prioritize quickly in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.
• Strong communication and cross-functional management skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively with culinary professionals, operations teams, warehouse staff, finance, sales, and senior leadership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with large-scale catering, luxury catering, corporate events, performing arts venues, festivals, or high-volume special events.
• Experience managing procurement across multiple venues or simultaneous events.
• Experience implementing or optimizing purchasing and inventory systems.
• Experience developing procurement SOPs, vendor scorecards, and inventory controls.
• Strong understanding of Bay Area foodservice suppliers and distribution networks.
• Experience supporting commissary or centralized culinary production operations.

What We're Looking For

The successful candidate will be someone who is equally comfortable managing purchasing data in operations software, negotiating with a supplier, walking the warehouse, meeting with chefs and department leads, and troubleshooting a product shortage before a major event.

This person should be proactive rather than reactive. They should naturally look several weeks ahead, identify potential problems before they impact an event, and create systems that make our teams more efficient.

Most importantly, they must understand the unique reality of catering and events: the plan changes, the guest count changes, the menu changes-and the event still has to happen flawlessly.

Our goal is simple: exceptional events supported by an exceptional supply chain.