Pick n Pay Fruit & Veg Manager vacancy Moffet 2026 | fresh produce manager jobs Eastern Cape | fruit and vegetable department manager jobs Gqeberha | fresh food retail manager jobs Eastern Cape 2026
Pick n Pay is recruiting a Fresh Produce Manager (Fruit & Veg) at its Moffet store in the Eastern Cape — a full-time, permanent department management role with complete accountability for the Fresh Produce department’s commercial performance, product quality, stock management, team leadership, and food safety compliance. This is a senior retail management position requiring 3–5 years of fresh produce retail experience with supervisory or management responsibility. The Fresh Produce Manager drives sales, gross margin, and shrinkage control while delivering a visually compelling, consistently stocked, and quality-led produce department that gives customers a reason to return. This role closes 9 April 2026 — with the platform end date confirmed as 10 April 2026. Apply before 9 April.
🥦 Permanent | Pick n Pay Moffet, Eastern Cape | Fresh Produce Manager | Closing 9 April 2026 — Apply Now.
Pick n Pay Fresh Produce Manager – Job Overview
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Job Title | Manager – Fruit & Veg (Fresh Produce) |
| Requisition ID | JR105369 |
| Company | Pick n Pay Retailers (Pty) Ltd |
| Industry | Retail / Fresh Produce / FMCG |
| Job Type | Full-time, Permanent |
| Location | Moffet, Eastern Cape |
| Minimum Qualification | Grade 12 / Matric — essential |
| Experience Required | 3–5 years fresh produce retail; supervisory or management responsibility required |
| Closing Date | ⚠️ 09 April 2026 (platform end date 10 April — apply before 9 April) |
| Application Status | ✅ Open — Apply Now |
About Pick n Pay
Pick n Pay is one of South Africa’s largest and most established supermarket retailers, serving millions of customers weekly across hypermarkets, supermarkets, family stores, and express formats. Listed on the JSE since 1968, Pick n Pay has a long-standing internal promotion culture and a well-resourced fresh food strategy — with its Fresh Produce department one of the most commercially significant and footfall-driving departments in every store. The Moffet store serves the Moffet-on-Main retail node in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), one of the Eastern Cape’s most commercially active suburban shopping destinations, with a quality-conscious customer base that places high value on fresh, well-presented produce.
Purpose of the Role
The Fresh Produce Manager leads and manages the Fruit & Veg department to ensure exceptional product quality, availability, and presentation — delivering strong sales, gross margin, and controlled shrinkage. The role drives operational excellence through effective stock management, team leadership, and strict adherence to merchandising and food safety standards. The Fresh Produce Manager is accountable for delivering a superior customer experience through fresh, high-quality produce, attractive displays, and consistent product availability, while ensuring profitability through disciplined stock control and waste management.
Key Responsibilities – Pick n Pay Fresh Produce Manager
Department Management and Commercial Performance
- Drive sales and profitability of the Fresh Produce department through effective stock management, smart product mix decisions, and customer-focused merchandising that converts footfall into basket revenue
- Ensure all SOPs are implemented, maintained, and adhered to — supporting operational consistency, compliance, and efficiency across every function of the department
- Monitor daily sales performance and implement targeted corrective actions to achieve departmental sales and margin targets
- Manage pricing, promotions, and product mix to optimise sales and margin performance — including promotional execution, markdown timing, and seasonal range decisions
- Ensure high levels of product availability while maintaining efficient stockholding levels that minimise working capital tied up in slow-moving or excess stock
Product Quality and Freshness
- Ensure all fresh produce meets company quality standards and freshness requirements — inspecting incoming product at receiving, monitoring display quality throughout the trading day, and removing non-conforming stock before it reaches the customer
- Implement strict FIFO stock rotation across all produce lines — maximising shelf life, reducing shrinkage, and ensuring customers always access the freshest available product
- Regularly inspect product quality — identifying and removing damaged, over-ripe, wilting, or poor-quality stock promptly and processing it through the correct waste or markdown procedure
- Ensure correct handling and storage procedures are followed at all points — from the receiving dock through cold room storage to the sales floor display — to maintain product integrity and extend shelf life
Customer Experience and Merchandising
- Maintain visually appealing, well-stocked, and organised produce displays that attract customers, communicate freshness, and drive impulse purchase across the full range
- Ensure adherence to planograms, display standards, and seasonal merchandising guidelines — executing Pick n Pay’s produce presentation standard consistently throughout trading hours
- Promote seasonal and promotional products through effective display execution — positioning high-margin or promotional lines at high-traffic display points to maximise conversion
- Deliver a positive customer shopping experience through product knowledge, attentive service, and a department that presents as a destination rather than a commodity section
Stock Management and Waste Control
- Manage ordering and replenishment processes to maintain optimal stock levels — avoiding both out-of-stocks (lost sales, customer dissatisfaction) and overstock (increased shrinkage, margin erosion)
- Monitor stock movement, shrinkage, and waste levels on a daily basis and implement corrective actions where results deviate from targets
- Conduct regular stock counts and ensure accurate inventory control — providing the Store Manager with reliable data for ordering, forecasting, and shrinkage reporting
- Work closely with receiving teams to ensure correct product quality and quantities are received against purchase orders — rejecting non-conforming deliveries and documenting supplier discrepancies
Team Leadership
- Lead, coach, and develop the Fresh Produce team to deliver operational excellence — building capability in product handling, merchandising standards, FIFO discipline, and customer engagement
- Manage staff scheduling to ensure adequate departmental coverage across all trading hours and peak periods without incurring unnecessary overtime cost
- Train team members on produce handling techniques, display and merchandising standards, and food safety and hygiene procedures
- Foster a culture of accountability, teamwork, and high performance — holding team members to agreed standards while creating an environment where people want to perform
Compliance and Food Safety
- Ensure full compliance with food safety, hygiene, and health regulations applicable to fresh produce retail — including correct temperature management for refrigerated lines, contamination prevention, and pest control protocols
- Maintain clean, organised, and safe working areas within the department — across the sales floor, back-up cold room, and receiving area
- Ensure all staff adhere to company policies and food handling standards at all times — making food safety a non-negotiable standard rather than an audit-day behaviour
Minimum Requirements – Pick n Pay Fresh Produce Manager Moffet
Education: Grade 12 (Matric) is essential. No tertiary qualification is specified for this role — making demonstrated operational experience and competency the primary selection criteria alongside the Matric requirement.
Experience: A minimum of 3–5 years’ experience in a fresh produce retail environment is required, with supervisory or management responsibility included within that period. Candidates from pure stock assistant or shelfpacker backgrounds without any supervisory exposure will not meet the minimum requirements, regardless of years served.
Technical Knowledge: Strong knowledge of fresh produce handling, merchandising, and stock management is essential — including understanding of commodity-specific storage requirements (ethylene-sensitive produce, cold-sensitive tropicals, humidity-dependent leafy vegetables), shrinkage drivers in fresh produce, and FIFO rotation discipline. Experience managing shrinkage, waste control, and stock rotation in a fresh produce context is specifically required.
Compliance Knowledge: An understanding of food safety and hygiene standards applicable to fresh produce retail — including temperature management, cross-contamination prevention, and produce-specific handling protocols.
Competencies: Strong commercial awareness and results orientation; leadership and team management capability; excellent organisational and stock management skills; strong attention to quality and product detail; customer-focused mindset; and the ability to perform consistently in a fast-paced, high-volume retail environment.
Why Join Pick n Pay as Fresh Produce Manager – Moffet
- Commercially significant department with high store visibility — Fresh Produce is consistently one of Pick n Pay’s highest-footfall departments, meaning the Fresh Produce Manager’s work is seen and evaluated by both customers and management daily; strong performers here are highly visible to area and regional teams
- Full shrinkage and margin accountability — owning waste control, shrinkage targets, and gross margin performance gives the Fresh Produce Manager genuine P&L management experience that is directly transferable to broader retail operations leadership
- Moffet-on-Main retail environment — one of Gqeberha’s most established and commercially active retail nodes, with a quality-conscious customer base that rewards strong produce presentation and consistent freshness standards
- No specialist qualification required — unlike the Deli Manager role which requires a culinary qualification, this position is accessible to experienced fresh produce retail professionals with a Matric, making it a genuine career milestone for candidates who have progressed through produce department ranks
- Internal promotion pipeline — Pick n Pay’s well-established culture of internal advancement positions the Fresh Produce Manager role as a clear stepping stone to multi-department management, Assistant Store Manager, and Store Manager within the group
- Team leadership at scale — managing a full fresh produce team including scheduling, coaching, training, and performance management builds the people leadership credentials needed for broader store management progression
Career Growth Path – Pick n Pay Fresh Food Management
- Fresh Produce Manager → Senior Department Manager / Multi-Department Manager
- Multi-Department Manager → Assistant Store Manager
- Assistant Store Manager → Store Manager
- Store Manager → Area Manager / Fresh Category Specialist (Regional)
Frequently Asked Questions – Pick n Pay Fresh Produce Manager Jobs 2026
What specific fresh produce handling knowledge is expected — and how technical does it get? Fresh produce retail management requires a working knowledge of commodity-specific handling and storage requirements that goes well beyond general retail stock management. For example: bananas and avocados are ethylene-producing fruits that accelerate the ripening of ethylene-sensitive commodities like leafy greens, berries, and apples when stored together — a Fresh Produce Manager must understand this and ensure correct cold room separation. Tropical fruits like mangoes, pawpaws, and pineapples are cold-sensitive and will suffer chill injury if stored at standard chilled produce temperatures (typically 2–4°C), requiring warmer storage zones. Leafy vegetables require high humidity to prevent wilting, while root vegetables tolerate lower humidity. Stone fruit has a narrow ripeness window that requires active monitoring and markdown intervention before it becomes waste. The Fresh Produce Manager is expected to understand these commodity requirements well enough to brief receiving staff, set cold room configurations, manage the display rotation schedule, and make correct markdown and rejection decisions without needing to escalate every product condition query to the Store Manager.
What are the main drivers of shrinkage in a fresh produce department — and how does a manager control them? Shrinkage in fresh produce has several distinct causes, each requiring a different management intervention. Overordering — ordering more product than the department can sell within the commodity’s shelf life — is the single largest controllable shrinkage driver, and is addressed through disciplined sales-based ordering rather than habit-based ordering. Incorrect rotation — allowing newer stock to sell before older stock — accelerates spoilage of back-up inventory and is controlled through strict FIFO discipline at every replenishment cycle. Cold chain failures — temperature exceedances during receiving, storage, or display — accelerate spoilage across entire product categories and are controlled through regular temperature checks and immediate corrective action. Incorrect handling — rough stacking, overfilling display bins, inappropriate product combinations — causes physical damage and accelerated ripening. Display overstocking — piling product higher than the air curtain line on refrigerated displays — compromises temperature maintenance and increases spoilage. A Fresh Produce Manager who can identify which of these drivers is causing a shrinkage spike in their department’s data, and implement the correct intervention, is one of the highest-value retail managers in the fresh food segment.
What does “planogram adherence” mean in a fresh produce context — and is it the same as in grocery? In grocery, planograms are highly prescriptive — every SKU has a fixed shelf position, facing count, and label location. In fresh produce, planograms are less granular but no less important. They typically specify: which commodity categories occupy which display fixture types (refrigerated wall bays, ambient bin displays, island displays); the positioning logic of high-margin or promotional lines at display entry points or eye-level positions; the adjacency rules (which commodities sit next to which, based on cross-selling logic and handling compatibility); and the seasonal range changes that adjust the fixture allocation as commodity availability shifts through the year. The Fresh Produce Manager’s planogram responsibility is to maintain these structural and positional standards while exercising informed discretion on how individual products fill the allocated space based on current stock availability and seasonal range. Seasonal merchandising — building themed displays around stone fruit season, citrus season, or promotional events — is a key creative and commercial function of the role that goes beyond standard planogram execution.
What does managing the ordering and replenishment process actually involve for a fresh produce department? Unlike ambient grocery, where orders are largely automated through SAP-based replenishment triggered by minimum stock levels, fresh produce ordering in most South African supermarkets involves a more active, judgment-based process. The Fresh Produce Manager typically reviews daily sales data and current stock levels, assesses the quality condition and remaining shelf life of current stock, checks promotional commitments for the coming days, and places orders — often daily — with the store’s fresh produce buyer or directly with approved suppliers and market agents. Orders must account for lead time (how long between order placement and delivery), minimum delivery quantities set by suppliers, and the receiving capacity of the department on a given day. Over-reliance on yesterday’s sales figures without accounting for day-of-week patterns, weather effects on produce demand, or upcoming promotional activity is one of the most common ordering errors made by less experienced fresh produce managers — and one of the primary controllable causes of both out-of-stocks and excess waste.
The closing date shows 9 April in the job description and 10 April on the platform — which should I apply to? The job description body specifies a closing date of 9 April 2026, while the Pick n Pay careers platform lists an end date of 10 April 2026. Treat 9 April 2026 as your hard deadline and submit before end of business on that date. The one-day discrepancy is a common occurrence between manually entered closing dates and system-generated platform end dates. In all cases of conflict, apply to the earlier date. Use requisition reference JR105369 and apply immediately — days remain, not weeks.
⚠️ How to Apply – Pick n Pay Fresh Produce Manager Moffet
⚠️ Closing Date: 9 April 2026 — apply before end of business. Do not delay.
Use requisition reference JR105369 in your application.
👉 Apply for Pick n Pay Fresh Produce Manager – Moffet Eastern Cape
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