Health Ingredient Sales Manager

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in North Carolina.

📋 Description

• Identify, prospect, and cultivate new customers in the areas of food ingredients, nutraceuticals, dietary supplements, and specialty nutrition.

• Design and implement account-specific sales strategies to enhance customer acquisition, boost revenue growth, and increase market presence.

• Establish connections with procurement, R&D, formulation, product development, and key commercial decision-makers.

• Oversee the complete sales cycle from prospecting and technical qualification to sampling, product evaluation, negotiation, and purchase order processing.

• Maintain a robust sales pipeline with defined milestones and anticipated revenue.

• Achieve or surpass sales targets, revenue goals, and new customer acquisition objectives.

• Foster long-term relationships with customers, contract manufacturers, formulators, and commercial partners.

• Comprehend customer requirements, development pipelines, purchasing needs, and sourcing strategies.

• Grow existing accounts by introducing additional applications, increasing volumes, and launching new products.

• Collaborate with distributors and commercial partners to enhance market coverage.

• Act as the primary commercial contact for designated accounts.

• Cultivate technical expertise regarding product specifications, purity, functionality, manufacturing benefits, and applications.

• Articulate the technical and commercial advantages of precision-fermentation-derived ingredients.

• Engage with customer formulation teams and assist with sampling, qualification, documentation, and product evaluations.

• Identify opportunities in areas such as infant formula, maternal nutrition, diabetic nutrition, metabolic health, and specialized foods.

• Work in conjunction with product management, R&D, quality, and regulatory teams to meet customer requirements.

• Recognize market opportunities, customer trends, competitive advancements, and new applications.

• Collect market intelligence on pricing, competitive positioning, and customer purchasing behaviors.

• Convey customer feedback to guide positioning, product development, and commercial strategy.

• Collaborate with the Product Manager on introducing new grades, specifications, certifications, and application-specific offerings.

• Represent DMC at trade shows, conferences, and customer meetings.

• Maintain precise CRM records, track opportunities, and document sales activities.

• Develop forecasts at the account level for volumes, revenue, and commercial timing.

• Provide pipeline updates and market insights to the VP of Business Development.

• Align customer demand forecasts with product management and operational teams.

• Assist in pricing negotiations while focusing on margin and profitability.

⛳️ Requirements

• A minimum of 5 years of direct B2B sales experience in food ingredients, showcasing success in new customer development and account growth.

• A proven history of meeting sales targets and managing customer relationships effectively.

• Experience in selling ingredients to food manufacturers, supplement companies, nutraceutical brands, or specialty nutrition firms.

• Familiarity with ingredient sales cycles, including technical qualification, sampling, formulation assessment, negotiation, and onboarding processes.

• Capability to engage with procurement, technical, R&D, and commercial stakeholders.

• Strong skills in prospecting, relationship cultivation, negotiation, closing, organization, and communication.

• Ability to convert technical features into compelling customer value propositions.

• Proficient in managing CRM pipelines and forecasting revenue.

• Willingness to travel regularly.

• Must be authorized to work in the United States.

• Preferred: Over 3 years of sales experience in nutraceutical ingredients, dietary supplements, functional foods, or wellness products.

• Preferred: Experience with infant formula, diabetic nutrition, medical nutrition, maternal nutrition, or other specialized nutritional applications.

• Preferred: Established network of ingredient buyers, formulators, and key commercial decision-makers.

• Preferred: Experience in commercializing innovative, differentiated, or branded ingredients.

• Preferred: Familiarity with inositols, functional carbohydrates, bioactive ingredients, or specialty nutritional compounds.

• Preferred: Understanding of FDA-related food and nutraceutical regulations and customer qualification processes.

• Preferred: Bachelor's degree in chemistry, biochemistry, food science, nutrition, chemical engineering, or a related technical field; MBA or further business education is a plus.

• Preferred: Experience with distributors and direct/indirect channels, scaling companies, or fermentation-derived ingredients.

🏝️ Benefits

• Sales commission potential of up to 25%.

• Opportunity for remote work.

• Travel opportunities ranging from 30% to 40%.