Category Lead

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About Us

At Hungryroot, we understand that food is deeply personal—it fuels our bodies and minds, impacting how we feel and function every day. Yet, the current food system makes it difficult to make healthy, enjoyable choices. With busy lifestyles and traditional grocery experiences that leave us overwhelmed, many struggle to find balance. Hungryroot is changing that through a seamless digital experience designed to make healthy eating effortless. At Hungryroot, we’re building the most consumer-centric food and wellness company to ever exist, empowering people to eat healthier, feel better, and make food choices that truly support their well-being.

We are a distributed team built on top talent from over 28 states across the U.S. While we have a headquarters in New York City, we support employees working from wherever they are based. We believe in fostering team connection and collaboration across all of our employees' locations. Expect to attend regular team building events and an annual company retreat. Expect to be treated like an owner who cares about our common goal, not someone who has to clock in and out of work.

Our cutting-edge AI technology, SmartCart™, powers a personalized meal planning and grocery shopping experience that is tailored to each customer’s unique preferences, dietary needs, budget, and goals. By recommending the right groceries and recipes, SmartCart™ saves hours of meal prep and shopping time, reduces stress, and ensures that customers always have fresh, nutritious options on hand. With an intuitive, easy-to-use digital platform, we bring variety and convenience to the forefront, helping customers discover new foods they love, while minimizing waste and saving money.

About the Role

Hungryroot is seeking a strategic, analytical, and passionate Category Lead to shape and scale our product assortment in alignment with our customers’ needs and preferences. This high-impact role is responsible for defining and executing data-informed category strategies that maximize customer satisfaction, drive sales and profitability, and uphold our mission to make healthy eating easy.

As Category Lead, you will own end-to-end category management for your categories—including assortment architecture, vendor and item selection, packaging, and merchandising—with a clear focus on curating products and brands that meet the Root Standard: our commitment to quality, nutrition, convenience, and great taste. You’ll play a key role in building and managing supplier partnerships, unlocking value through cost optimization, vendor performance management, and innovation.

In this important role, you will report directly to the Director of Category Management and collaborate closely with Culinary, Analytics, Food Safety, Marketing, and Supply Chain teams to onboard and maintain an assortment of best-in-class products.

Responsibilities

• Own and lead the strategic direction of your assigned categories—developing a long-term vision and executing against clear goals to drive customer satisfaction, growth, and profitability.
• Proactively identify and source innovative brands and products that align with Hungryroot’s core values of health, convenience, and taste—ensuring a differentiated, mission-aligned assortment.
• Own the end-to-end product lifecycle, leading cross-functional execution from pipeline planning and vendor negotiations through onboarding, launch, and in-market performance management.
• Leverage data and customer insights to inform category strategy, guiding decisions on product mix, pricing, promotion, and placement to improve business performance and customer value.
• Identify and deliver cost-saving initiatives, renegotiating vendor agreements or exploring alternative sourcing while preserving quality, performance, and margin goals.
• Steer long-term assortment health, identifying assortment gaps, whitespace opportunities, market trends, and rationalization needs to en