Trading Manager - Indian, Oriental, Asian & Health Ready Meals

Job description

Job Title
Trading Manager - Indian, Oriental, Asian & Health Ready Meals
Location
Asda House
Employment Type
Full time
Contract Type
Permanent
Hours Per Week
37.5
Salary

Competitive salary plus benefits

Category
Buying
Closing Date
29 October 2026

Are you a commercially driven Trading Manager with a passion for world foods, emerging consumer trends, and delivering category growth?

We're looking for a Trading Manager to lead our Indian, Oriental, Asian & Health Ready Meals category at Asda. This is a unique opportunity to shape one of the most dynamic and fast-evolving areas of the Ready Meals market, balancing authentic cuisine, health-led innovation, customer value, and category performance.

As the Trading Manager, you'll have ownership of a strategically important category, working with leading branded partners and own-brand suppliers to deliver sales growth, profitability, innovation, and exceptional customer propositions. You'll combine commercial expertise with consumer insight to identify opportunities, create compelling ranges, and ensure Asda continues to meet the evolving tastes and lifestyles of millions of customers.

What you'll be doing

• Owning the end-to-end trading performance of the Indian, Oriental, Asian & Health Ready Meals category, delivering sales, profit, and market share growth.
• Developing and executing category strategies that align with customer trends, market opportunities, and Asda's wider commercial objectives.
• Leading supplier negotiations across pricing, promotions, range development, innovation, and strategic investment.
• Building strong, collaborative partnerships with key suppliers to deliver joint business plans and long-term growth.
• Managing category P&L performance, balancing value, volume, margin, and customer satisfaction.
• Using customer, market, and competitor insights to identify opportunities for innovation, differentiation, and growth.
• Driving category range reviews, product launches, and promotional strategies to ensure a compelling customer offer.
• Championing food trends across world cuisine, healthy living, convenience, and premium meal solutions.
• Monitoring commodity and market dynamics, translating insight into effective commercial actions.
• Working cross-functionally with Supply Chain, Finance, Retail Operations, Technical, Marketing, and Product Development teams to deliver category objectives.
• Leading initiatives that improve cost-to-serve, operational efficiency, and sustainable category growth.

What you'll bring

• Significant experience in a commercial Trading, Buying, or Category Management role, ideally within Grocery, Chilled Food, Ready Meals, or FMCG.
• Proven experience managing category performance, supplier negotiations, and commercial delivery.
• Strong P&L management skills with the ability to drive sales and profitability simultaneously.
• Excellent negotiation and influencing skills, with experience delivering meaningful commercial outcomes.
• A passion for food and a strong understanding of evolving customer trends, particularly within world foods, convenience, and health-focused ranges.
• The ability to interpret complex data and translate insights into actionable commercial strategies.
• Exceptional stakeholder management skills with the confidence to engage and influence at all levels.
• A growth mindset and the ability to identify opportunities in fast-moving and highly competitive markets.

Why Asda?

This is an opportunity to lead a category at the intersection of some of the biggest trends in food retail: world cuisine, healthier eating, convenience, and innovation. You'll work with some of the industry's leading suppliers, influence category strategy at scale, and play a key role in shaping products enjoyed by millions of customers across the UK.

If you're a commercially astute Trading Manager who thrives on spotting trends, building partnerships, and delivering category growth, we'd love to hear from you.

Everything you'll love

To ensure we balance moments where we know we need to collaborate together and the need for flexibility, Asda has a hybrid way of working with a minimum 3 days a week in one of our Home Offices. Over and above this, each area of Asda may have additional requirements which may require spending more days in the office, visiting suppliers, stores or depots.

You will also get an excellent benefits package including:

• Discretionary company bonus
• Company pension up to 7% matched
• Company Car allowance of £5,700
• 15% colleague discount in store and online
• Free access to wellbeing services such as Stream, 24/7 virtual GP, counselling, health and dental cash plans and a 24/7 employee assistance helpline, alongside discounts across a range of services and activities, from airport parking, enhanced to theme parks and cinemas.
• Asda Allies Inclusion Networks - helping colleagues to make sure everybody is included and that our differences are recognised and celebrated
• Excellent parental leave policies, including maternity & adoption leave, paternity leave, shared parental leave, neonatal care leave, and support for those doing fertility treatments.

We want all colleagues to be able to bring their best and true selves to work, every day. Simply put, we want our colleagues to be Proud to be Asda and proud to be themselves