Foodservice Sales Manager - Nashville / Bay Area / DMV

Foodservice Sales Manager - Nashville/Bay Area/DMVAbout Us

Zero Acre Farms is a food company focused on high-performance cooking oils with a mission to end the food industry's dependence on harmful seed oils. Designed for chefs and optimized for human and planetary health, the company’s flagship cooking and frying oils have been embraced by award-winning chefs. As a public benefit corporation and a first-of-its-kind enterprise focused on the impact of oil in foodservice, Zero Acre has received accolades by The New York Times, Food & Wine and Bon Appétit and was named one of Fast Company's "Most Innovative Companies.'' The company is backed by an all-star group of investors, chefs, health thought leaders and changemakers including Lowercarbon Capital, Collaborative Fund, Chipotle’s Cultivate Next venture fund, Virgin Group and others.

The Role

Vegetable oils are problematic enough when used for home cooking, but a large percentage of vegetable oils are consumed in restaurant meals. Because this channel is driving demand for the majority of vegetable oil production, they also have the largest climate impact. To give the world the oil change we have in mind, we need to talk to a lot of restaurants and convince them to try this first-of-its-kind cooking oil. 

Zero Acre Farms is looking for a driven Foodservice Sales Manager who is passionate about the foodservice industry and passionate about making an impact through healthier oils for people and planet. Our small and mighty team is looking for a hungry team player who will not only take responsibility for sales outreach, but also wants to close deals, manage relationships and will stretch internally to ensure we have smooth operations and quality sales data. We’re looking for a candidate in Nashville, the Bay Area, or the DMV.

Responsibilities

• Drive incremental sales, primarily in key markets, through responding to qualified leads, relationship building, and in-person market visits to chefs, distributors and other foodservice buyers.
• Manage and grow existing customer accounts, leading high retention and identifying opportunities to expand usages across our portfolio.
• Own the complete sales cycle from prospecting to closing and retaining new customers.
• Own relationships with regional distributors, including ridealongs, training, and ongoing support to ensure alignment and performance.
• Develop and execute territory plans that prioritize high-potential accounts and support overall sales goals.
• Identify and share market and customer insights to inform our go-to-market strategy.
• Maintain accurate sales data in CRM.

Requirements

• Passionate about improving the health of people and the planet. Love of food.
• 2+ years experience in sales with proven success achieving sales targets
• Demonstrated ability to close deals.
• Existing knowledge and experience from the foodservice industry, ideally back of house.
• Adaptable and pleasantly persistent (you won’t take no for an answer)
• Experience with CRM software
• Customer service mindset
• Must be based in Nashville, the Bay Area, or the DMV
• Willing to be in market every day. Travel up to 40% to support markets outside of the primary territory.

This is a high-impact role; you’ll meet customers face-to-face, manage inbound leads, open new accounts, help existing ones grow, and drive market/customer discovery to help us learn faster. Your work will directly contribute to revenue, retention, and finding product market fit for new products. 

Interested?

Contact: Ben Wahl, View email address on culinaryagents.com, VP of Sales 

Please be sure to include your resume and succinct answers to these three questions (max 150 words each).

1. Why Zero Acre Farms?
2. Why are you the right person for this role?
3. How will you close a prospect that thinks seed oils are fine?