Fresh Food Field Specialist at Sasol

Purpose of Job

• The Fresh Food Field Specialist is responsible for driving profitability, operational excellence, and food safety compliance across franchised convenience retail stores. The role is primarily field-based (approximately 90%) and focuses on supporting franchisees through operational guidance, training, merchandising, and adherence to food safety and Sasol standards
• Ascertain that the franchisee increases profitability and secure adherence to food safety requirements.

Key Accountabilities

• Operations & Store Performance
• Optimize convenience store performance across approximately +/-300 sites.
• Conduct regular site visits and inspections focusing on food safety, quality, merchandising, and operational compliance.
• Ensure adherence to South African food safety regulations and Sasol safety standards.
• Identify operational gaps, perform root cause analysis, and implement corrective actions.
• Roll out and maintain Bakery and Fresh Food planograms to improve efficiency and sales.
• Execute the Convenience Retail strategy at site level.
• Financial & Commercial Management Analyse store sales, turnover, margins, and sub-categories.
• Provide franchisees with pricing and cost guidance to achieve margin targets.
• Support initiatives to increase customer traffic, turnover growth, and profitability.
• Training & Development Organise, present, and oversee training programs for shop staff and management (food hygiene, bakery, customer service, supervisors). Train new franchisees and store managers.
• Maintain training records, competence certificates, and assessments. Identify skills gaps and provide coaching and mentoring at site level.
• Stakeholder & Franchisee Management Build and maintain strong working relationships with franchisees, suppliers, and internal stakeholders (RAMs, Training, Maintenance, IT).
• Act as a Sasol Ambassador, ensuring credibility and consistent standards across the retail network.
• Provide field intelligence and performance feedback to internal teams. Store Openings, Promotions & Projects Support new store openings, including supplier setup, equipment commissioning, and opening stock.
• Coordinate promotional activities with suppliers and ensure in-store compliance.
• Ensure POS systems, scanners, and barcodes function correctly before trading.
• Benchmark competitor stores, pricing, and merchandising practices.
• Handle and improve operation sites of fresh food.
• Roll out bakery and food planograms to stores.
• Enhance operating procedures on an on-going basis or improve operational efficiency at the site level if required.
• Follow call cycle procedures, capture activities, and email concerns to relevant parties.
• Execute programmes developed by other functions to secure that Sasol Group achieves its leadership target in the market.
• Act as Sasol Group ambassador to build credibility of the company.
• Create and enforce food safety processes as required by South African regulations and standards.
• Arrange food safety audits and corrective action process.
• Conduct quality control of products as required.
• Work closely with SHEQ to identify risks and set controls in place.
• Verify that reporting and control procedures at store level are in place and conform to company’s policies and procedures.
• Confirm that suppliers adhere to product specifications and food safety standards.

Key Accountabilities Continued

• Audit suppliers that meet minimum standards and requirements.
• Approve and register new suppliers.
• Inspect and resolve customer complaints.
• Guarantee effective roll-out of new projects and their consistency throughout the retail network as per segmentation.
• Keep teams informed and up to date on food safety procedures, new legislation, and other requirements.
• Organise and oversee training programmes for shop staff including food safety.
• Supervise training of bakery and customer service training.
• Train new franchisees and managers.
• Assess trainees as per company requirements.
• Determine training needs gaps.
• Prepare presentation of training programmes.
• Maintain training records, competence certificates, and schedules of personnel.
• Assist stores in opening accounts with suppliers and ordering opening stock.
• Assure that store equipment is delivered and commissioned by contractors.
• Coordinating store opening activities with suppliers e.g. promotions.
• Work with IT consultants to confirm that pay point systems and bar codes are working.
• Check accuracy of promotions at sites.
• Carry out bi-weekly performance meetings with QA and NPD Manager regarding sites and supplier visit reports, operational issues, results of food safety audit, and general presentations.
• Apply evidence-based SHE practices in alignment with set standards for safe operations.
• Implement Sasol Group's risk philosophy and enterprise risk management framework.
• Build and maintain positive relationships with internal and external stakeholders including operations, training, customer care, and maintenance departments as well as supplier management and franchisee management to resolve problems effectively.
• Continuously improve own skills and knowledge.
• Complete, implement, and track personal development plan to attain personal performance goals.

Formal Education

• University Bachelor’s Degree

Min Experience

• Minimum 3–5 years’ retail experience, with at least 2 years in retailing (or 6+ years relevant experience in food retail, franchise, bakery, or coffee industry)

Technical Skills & Knowledge

• Fresh food operations and food safety compliance
• Convenience store and FMCG retail experience
• Planogram implementation and merchandising
• Sales, margin, and waste management analysis
• Point of Sale (POS) systems knowledge
• Strong reporting and administrative capability

Key Competencies

• Strong people and stakeholder management skills
• Excellent communication and facilitation abilities
• Assertive, decisive, and results-driven
• Self-motivated, adaptable, and able to work independently in a field-based role
• Business and partnership leadership mindset