About Sunco Foods

Sunco Foods is a Canadian food manufacturer producing high-quality, value-added food products for retail, foodservice, and industrial customers across North America and select international markets. Our portfolio includes nut butters (peanut, almond, and cashew), as well as packaged nuts, fruits, seeds, and snack products — designed to meet evolving consumer demand for quality, consistency, and innovation while maintaining rigorous food safety and operational excellence standards.

Sunco Foods serves a broad range of customers, from national and regional brands to private-label partners, and is committed to reliable service, strong partnerships, and continuous product improvement.

As the business grows, Sunco Foods is investing in operational systems, leadership capability, and scalable manufacturing processes to support long-term expansion.

The company values practical leadership, accountability, and continuous improvement, creating an environment where strong operational leaders can make a visible impact on performance, culture, and results.

The Demand & Supply Planner develops an integrated demand and supply plan that balances customer requirements, inventory, materials, manufacturing capacity, and business objectives.

The position plays a key role in the company's Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP;) process and serves as the primary liaison among Sales, Operations, Procurement, Production, Warehousing, Logistics, and Finance.

The Demand & Supply Planner translates commercial forecasts and customer requirements into executable plans for supply, inventory, materials, and production using Demand Planning, DRP, MRP, capacity planning, and production scheduling.

The successful candidate will have at least four years of relevant planning experience, strong ERP/MRP knowledge, excellent analytical skills, and the ability to proactively identify supply-demand imbalances before they impact customer service or create excess inventory.

Key Responsibilities1. Demand Planning & Forecasting

· Develop and maintain a rolling 12- to 18-month demand forecast by SKU, customer, channel, and/or distribution location.

· Establish a statistical or historical baseline forecast and integrate commercial intelligence from Sales.

· Analyze:

o Historical sales

o Seasonality

o Promotions

o Customer forecasts and orders

o New customer listings

o Product launches

o Lost or changing business

o Market and channel trends

· Facilitate regular forecast reviews with Sales and other commercial stakeholders.

· Challenge forecast assumptions when they conflict with historical trends, capacity, customer behaviour, or available market information.

· Maintain forecast assumptions and document material changes to the forecast.

· Develop specific planning approaches for:

o Core/high-volume SKUs

o Seasonal products

o Promotional items

o Customer-specific products

o New product introductions

o Slow-moving SKUs

o End-of-life/discontinued products

· Monitor forecast performance using Forecast Accuracy, WAPE/MAPE, and Forecast Bias metrics.

2. Supply Planning

· Translate the consensus demand forecast into a realistic supply plan.

· Maintain forward-looking supply requirements for finished goods, raw materials, packaging, production capacity, and distribution.

· Compare unconstrained demand with:

o Available inventory

o Production capacity

o Labour capacity

o Material availability

o Supplier capacity and lead times

o Warehouse capacity

· Identify potential supply-demand gaps early and recommend corrective actions.

· Develop alternatives such as:

o Inventory prebuilds

o Production schedule changes

o Alternate materials

o Purchase order acceleration

o Inventory transfers

o Overtime or additional production shifts

o Customer allocation or prioritization

· Escalate material supply or capacity risks that cannot be resolved within normal planning parameters.

3. S&OP;

The Demand & Supply Planner will be a key contributor to the Sales & Operations Planning process.

Demand Review

· Consolidate baseline forecasts, commercial intelligence, promotions, seasonality, and customer information.

· Identify meaningful changes from the previous planning cycle.

· Highlight forecast risks and opportunities.





· Develop a consensus demand plan.

Supply Review

· Compare demand against available supply and capacity.

· Identify:

o Material shortages

o Capacity constraints

o Inventory shortfalls

o Excess inventory

o Warehouse constraints

o Customer service risks

· Develop supply scenarios and recommendations.

Pre-S&OP; / Executive S&OP;

· Present major demand-supply gaps that require management decisions.

· Quantify implications for customer service, inventory, production, and working capital.

· Document agreed decisions, assumptions, owners, and due dates.

· Translate the approved S&OP; plan into operational planning parameters and schedules.

4. DRP & Inventory Planning

· Manage Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP) across company warehouses, distribution centres, and 3PL locations.

· Determine replenishment quantities and timing by SKU and location.

· Establish and maintain appropriate:

o Safety stock

o Reorder points

o Minimum/maximum inventory levels

o Days/weeks of supply

o Transfer quantities

· Monitor finished goods inventory against established targets.

· Identify:

o Stockout risks

o Excess inventory

o Slow-moving inventory

o Obsolete inventory

o Short-dated inventory

o Imbalances between warehouse locations

· Recommend inter-warehouse or 3PL inventory transfers as appropriate.

· Balance customer service requirements against inventory investment and working capital needs.

For food manufacturing, inventory plans must also account for shelf life, FEFO, minimum production runs, seasonality, storage capacity, allergen/changeover constraints, and, where applicable, refrigerated or frozen storage requirements.

5. MRP & Materials Planning

· Use the company's ERP system to translate production requirements into raw material and packaging requirements.

· Review MRP outputs and planned orders to ensure they align with actual operational requirements.

· Work with Procurement to ensure the timely supply of ingredients, raw materials, packaging, and other critical inputs.

· Identify potential shortages early enough to implement corrective actions without disrupting production.

· Maintain and periodically review critical planning parameters, including:

o Supplier lead times

o Manufacturing lead times

o Safety stocks

o Minimum order quantities

o Order multiples

o Lot sizes

o Reorder points

o Planning horizons

· Investigate recurring MRP exceptions and recommend master data or process improvements.

6. Production Planning & Scheduling

· Translate demand and inventory requirements into achievable production plans.

· Develop and maintain weekly production schedules and forward capacity plans.

· Sequence production to balance:

o Customer priorities

o Material availability

o Equipment capacity

o Labour availability

o Minimum batch quantities

o Changeovers

o Sanitation requirements

o Allergen changeovers

o Shelf life

o Warehouse capacity

· Maintain sufficient schedule stability to support efficient manufacturing while remaining responsive to legitimate customer priorities.

· Monitor actual production against the schedule.

· Analyze schedule exceptions to identify recurring causes of non-attainment.

· Work with Production Management to resolve capacity bottlenecks.

7. Inventory & Working Capital Management

The Demand & Supply Planner is expected to manage inventory as a business asset rather than simply maximizing availability.

Responsibilities include:

· Establish appropriate inventory levels by SKU or product family.

· Monitor actual versus target inventory.

· Support inventory-turn improvement initiatives.

· Identify excess, obsolete, slow-moving, and short-dated inventory.

· Recommend corrective actions before inventory becomes obsolete.

· Quantify opportunities and risks associated with inventory builds.





· Support Finance with inventory projections and working-capital forecasts.

The objective is to achieve the appropriate balance between:

Customer Service ↔ Inventory ↔ Manufacturing Efficiency ↔ Working Capital

8. Planning Analytics & Reporting

Develop and maintain planning dashboards and reporting for:

KPI

Purpose

Forecast Accuracy / WAPE

Measure forecast reliability

Forecast Bias

Identify systematic over/under forecasting

OTIF / Fill Rate

Measure customer service

Inventory Turns

Measure inventory productivity

Days/Weeks of Supply

Monitor stock versus policy

Stockouts

Identify service exposure

Excess & Obsolete Inventory

Manage working-capital risk

Schedule Attainment

Measure manufacturing execution

Material Availability

Identify supply risk

Expedites

Identify planning/supply instability

Capacity Utilization

Identify future constraints

S&OP; Action Completion

Measure planning discipline

The planner should focus on exceptions, root causes, and corrective actions, not simply produce reports.

9. Cross-Functional Responsibilities

The position is highly cross-functional.

Sales & Marketing

Demand forecasts, promotions, customer intelligence, new products, listings and changes in customer demand.

Production

Capacity, production sequencing, constraints, schedule attainment and operational priorities.

Procurement

MRP requirements, supplier capacity, raw materials, packaging, lead times and shortages.

Warehouse & Logistics

DRP, inventory positioning, transfers, storage capacity and 3PL inventories.

Finance

Inventory projections, working capital, forecast alignment and S&OP; financial implications.

Quality & Product Development

Shelf life, product transitions, new products, material substitutions, holds and product disposition constraints.

QualificationsRequired

· Bachelor's degree or college diploma in Supply Chain Management, Operations Management, Business, Engineering, Finance, or a related discipline.

· Minimum 4 years of experience in demand planning, supply planning, materials planning, production planning, or a similar position.

· Hands-on experience with an S&OP; process.

· Demonstrated experience with:

o Demand forecasting

o Supply planning

o DRP

o MRP

o Inventory management

o Capacity planning

o Production planning and scheduling

· Practical experience with an ERP/MRP system.

· Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel.

· Strong quantitative and analytical skills.

· Ability to convert large datasets into clear operational recommendations.

· Robust communication and cross-functional influencing skills.

Preferred

· Experience in food manufacturing, CPG, beverages, bakery, dairy, or another high-volume manufacturing environment.

· Experience managing products with short shelf life and/or seasonal products.

· Experience with multiple warehouses or 3PL facilities.

· Power BI or similar business intelligence experience.

· Experience with advanced planning or demand forecasting systems.

· ASCM/APICS CPIM or CSCP certification is an asset.

Core CompetenciesAnalytical & Commercial

· Robust numerical ability

· Forecasting and trend analysis

· Business and commercial awareness

· Financial understanding

· Data-driven decision-making

Supply Chain

· S&OP;

· Demand Planning

· Supply Planning

· DRP

· MRP

· Inventory Planning

· Capacity Planning

· Production Scheduling

Behavioral

· Strong ownership and accountability

· Attention to detail

· Problem solving

· Sense of urgency

· Constructive challenge

· Cross-functional collaboration

· Communication and influencing

· Ability to work through competing priorities

The Demand & Supply Planner translates expected customer demand into an executable plan covering supply, inventory, materials, and production.

This positions the role as much more than a forecaster. It creates a single planning role accountable for aligning commercial demand with operational execution, while Procurement retains purchasing execution, Production retains manufacturing execution, and Sales retains ownership of commercial and customer activities.

Pay: From $80,000.00 per year

Benefits:

- Dental care
- Extended health care
- On-site parking

Experience:

- Production planning: 4 years (required)

Work Location: In person

📌 Demand and Supply Planner (Burnaby)
🏢 Sunco Foods
📍 Burnaby