Head of Planning
Farmer’s Fridge makes fruits and vegetables accessible and approachable for everyone. We offer a variety of fresh, healthy, ready-to-eat meals and snacks through our fresh food vending machines, wholesale partners, and our office pantry solution — providing chef-curated meals to customers within seconds. Today, we operate a network of Fridges and partner with clients nationwide in high-foot-traffic areas, such as airports, hospitals, universities, and large office buildings — where there is limited accessibility to fresh, healthy, grab-n-go options.
We care deeply about what we’re creating and aspire to make sure our customers feel that through every touchpoint. This shows up in many ways across the business. We are committed to prioritizing food safety, we are passionate about product quality, we value our employees, we champion the best idea no matter where it comes from, and we’re committed to making an overall positive impact as we scale.
About this Role: As the Head of Planning, you will own the end-to-end Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process for our business that produces, ships, and stocks fresh food every single day. With shelf life as a main constraint and a network that replenishes daily, the plan is the operation: what Planning commits to is what Procurement buys, what Production builds, what Pick Pack sorts, and what our line hauls, delivery routes, and drivers execute. This role converts a growing commercial demand into a plan the business can actually deliver.
You will lead a team of planning leaders across Procurement, Production, Pick Pack, Fulfillment, and a Planning Continuous Improvement Manager. Your immediate mandate is to create a detailed list of supply chain constraints measured against demand and build a roadmap to prioritize and eliminate highest ROI capacity bottlenecks. You will be the single gatekeeper of operational constraints which are rolled up from your domain managers, defended with data, and owned across every planning horizon from day-of execution to three-plus months out, through long term supply planning.
What You’ll Do…
- Sales & Operations Planning Ownership
- Own the full S&OP cycle end to end — demand review, supply review, reconciliation, and executive S&OP — with a fixed cadence, named owners, and a single published plan of record.
- Run the process across all planning horizons — day-of, 2–3 days, one week, one month, six weeks, and three-plus months — so that near-term execution and long-range capacity decisions are made off the same set of numbers.
- Drive decisions in the S&OP forum. Where demand exceeds capability, surface the options — add capacity, shift mix, re-sequence, or accept the miss — and drive the call to closure.
- Partner with Sales, Revenue Operations, Channel, Finance, and Culinary/R&D so that fridge launches and removals, delivery cadence changes, menu changes, and promotional activity are reflected in the plan before they reach the floor.
- Constraint Ownership & Gatekeeping
- Serve as the single gatekeeper of operational constraints for the business. No constraint enters the plan without being defined, quantified, owned, and validated.
- Roll up constraints from domain managers across the six constraining functions in flow order: Procurement, Production, Pick Pack, Line Hauls, Final Mile Delivery, and Fridge Stocking.
- Own the constraint matrix that maps each functional constraint to its relevant planning horizon, with a named owner, a current value, a documented basis of calculation, and a review date.
- Hold the line on constraint integrity and challenge padded or stale limits, require the data behind each number, and retire constraints once they have been resolved.
- Translate constraints into a plain answer to the question the business actually asks: what can we sell, produce, and stock this week, and what would have to change to do more?
- Team Leadership & Development
- Lead a team of planning managers across multiple domains — Procurement, Production, Pick Pack, and Fulfillment Planning, and Planning Continuous Improvement — and build the bench beneath them.
- Set a consistent standard of planning rigor across domains: documented assumptions, versioned models, published outputs, and structured post-mortems on plan-versus-actual misses.
- Coach domain managers to own their constraints as business partners to their operating counterparts, not as reporters of numbers handed to them.
- Define roles, spans, and career paths as the team scales with the network; hire ahead of the growth curve rather than in reaction to it.
- Establish clear escalation paths between Planning and Operations so that day-of deviations are resolved without re-litigating the plan.
- Bottleneck Identification & Growth Enablement
- Identify the binding constraint in the network at any given time and quantify what it costs the business in unserved demand, service misses, waste, or excess cost.
- Maintain a forward view of the next several bottlenecks. Identify the constraints that will bind at 1.5x and 2x current volume along with the lead time required to relieve each one.
- Translate bottleneck analysis into capital, headcount, and network recommendations with the business case attached.
- Partner with Operations and Finance on capacity investment: plant lines and shifts, pick pack throughput, line haul lanes, delivery fleet, and fridge-level access and servicing capacity.
- Support network design and expansion decisions including new markets, hubs and spokes, route density, and fridge placement within modeled capability.
- Resource Planning & Allocation
- Own labor planning across the planning domains: required versus scheduled headcount by function, shift, and market, with buffer and attrition assumptions made explicit.
- Allocate constrained resources including production hours, pick pack capacity, drivers, vehicles, and inventory to their highest-value use when demand exceeds capability, using an agreed and documented prioritization rule.
- Ensure production, pick pack, and fulfillment plans reflect real operational limits: shelf life, order cutoffs, cooler and dock capacity and access, line haul departure windows, route density, and site access restrictions.
- Partner with Final Mile Delivery on route demand and driver requirements so actual and planned routes align.
- Build flex capacity into the plan including temporary labor, overtime, and third-party support and define the trigger points for using it.
- Planning Systems, Data & Continuous Improvement
- Establish the planning system of record and reduce the dependence on standalone spreadsheets as the team and network scale.
- Define and own the planning KPI set such as forecast accuracy, plan attainment, constraint accuracy, fill rate, waste, and labor plan variance and review it on a fixed cadence.
- Direct the Planning Continuous Improvement Manager toward the highest-leverage process gaps, using Lean and structured problem-solving to address root causes rather than symptoms.
- Partner with Analytics and Engineering on the data, modeling, and optimization tooling the planning process depends on, including capacity and routing optimization.
Who You Are…
- 8+ years of supply chain or operations planning experience, including 3+ years leading teams; experience managing managers strongly preferred
- Demonstrated ownership of a full S&OP cycle, including running the executive S&OP forum, strongly preferred
- Labor planning and resource planning/allocation experience across multi-site operations strongly preferred
- Network design and capacity modeling experience strongly preferred
- Experience building or operating a constraint-based planning model (finite capacity, rough-cut capacity planning, or similar) preferred
- Experience balancing both supply and demand to maximize business outcomes (ex revenue, profit)
- Prior experience in fresh, perishable, or short-shelf-life food — production, distribution, or both — preferred
- Progressive team management experience with a track record of developing planners into planning leaders
- Advanced analytical capability: Excel modeling required; SQL, BI tooling, and familiarity with optimization or routing platforms preferred
- Comfort operating in ambiguity and building process where none exists today
The base salary range for this role is $150,000 - $195,000. The base pay offered will be determined by factors such as experience, skills, training, certifications, education, and any applicable minimum wage requirements.
In addition to base salary, this position is eligible for company performance-based bonuses and equity.
We provide a comprehensive benefits package, including:
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance (multiple plans available)
- 401(k) with immediate employer match vesting
- Paid time off (including vacation, sick leave, and holidays)
- Paid sabbatical after 5 years of service
- Employee discounts
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
Benefits at Farmer's Fridge:
In This Together - We stay connected, whether in person or virtually. We encourage business transparency through monthly town hall meetings and weekly financial updates. We set out to make the best product on the market, and we believe we’ve done it. We value your input in the new menu creation process. From regular tasting panels, where employees provide new menu feedback.
Happier Workdays - Each day at work should fill you with joy. We're a fun and passionate group, and we don't take ourselves too seriously. Bring your unique self to work, dress comfortably, and always feel free to share your thoughts and opinions. We encourage curiosity; there's no hierarchy here when we're all swapping ideas.
Never run on empty - Daily Farmer's Fridge meal and office snacks are just some of the offerings to make sure you aren't distracted by a growling stomach. Recharge with our paid sabbatical program after five years of service.
Innovate & Elevate - We're all teachers and learners. You'll grow and help grow the company through cross-functional collaboration, open access to leadership, and regular business updates. You have a direct impact on the company’s bottom line. You can also impact your bottom line by participating in our 401(k) plan that includes a company match with immediate vesting.
Farmer’s Fridge Diversity Statement:
"Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Farmer’s Fridge, we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.”
Farmer’s Fridge is an equal-opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity in all employment practices, including hiring, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. View our disclosures related to External Agencies and Applicants below: https://www.farmersfridge.com/careerdisclosures