Associate Category Manager - Dunkin

Work with cross‑functional team to bring product offerings from ideation to testing, and then through launch and post‑launch analysis. Support innovation pipeline development, menu renovations, and calendar planning for Dunkin’.

Duties and Responsibilities

Manage Food (Savory, Donuts & Bakery) innovation pipeline through the following activities.

Identify and stay on top of product trends through trend tours, secondary research, conferences/trade shows, and partnership with competitive intelligence team.

Partner with culinary team to ideate product innovation, draft concept development briefs, and manage agendas and recaps for weekly meetings.

Partner with consumer insights team to evaluate opportunity size, determine positioning, and write idea and concept screeners to gauge consumer interest.

Evaluate new product cost model to ensure key margin requirements are met.

Pull together business case including insights, competitive landscape, and target audience to align XF leaders on product kickoff.

Plan out the calendar and get products ready for launch through the following activities.

Work with XF team of R&D, operations, supply chain, demand planning, QA, commercialization and legal to ensure products are ready for launch.

Manage updates in the product tracker capturing all product details.

Partner with operations team on in‑store testing and evaluating product performance against set criteria.

Partner with brand marketing team to help identify which products to launch based on learnings through screeners or testing.

Assist in menu presentations to key franchisee and marketing stakeholders, leveraging key business case details from pipeline project work to drive menu decisions.

Lead through and submit product readiness materials including readiness templates, POS forms, profitability forms, marketing input forms, app forms, and product one‑pagers. Review all output from cross‑functional teams.

Write product briefs to kick off XF partners for agency briefings to initiate the marketing communications process for new products.

Identify and resolve project‑related risks and issues throughout the process.

Lead through post‑launch activities including partnering with business analytics to measure and analyze the impact of programs (including long‑term category growth opportunities) and assisting in field and franchisee communication and collaboration.

Requirements

4 Year Degree in Business and/or Marketing Preferred.

2–4 years total work experience. Food and beverage or CPG industry experience preferred but not required, especially in marketing, product development, or consumer insights roles.

Creative and strategic thinking.

Strong communications and interpersonal skills.

Ability to work individually and with large cross‑functional teams.

Ability to thrive in a fast‑paced environment, multi‑task, prioritize, and be detail oriented.

Project management.

Financial acumen.

Problem‑solving agility.

Strong PowerPoint and Excel skills.

Salary: 79,953.75 – 133,256.25 per year.

The salary range above represents the low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual placement within this range will vary based on various factors including but not limited to experience, education, training, and location.

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