Junior Meal Merchandiser

Company Description

Louis Dreyfus Company is a leading merchant and processor of agricultural goods. Our activities span the entire value chain from farm to fork, across a broad range of business lines, we leverage our global reach and extensive asset network to serve our customers and consumers around the world. Structured as a matrix organization of six geographical regions and ten platforms, Louis Dreyfus Company is active in over 100 countries and employs approximately 18,000 people globally.

Job Description

This position serves as a merchandiser for soybean meal produced at a large soybean processing facility. Individual works with customers to outline logistics requirements and manages coordination of truck SBM shipments from the plant and supports the coordination of SHP shipments.

Primary Responsibilities/Essential Functions

• Merchandises soybean meal produced at a large soybean processing facility  
• Maintains daily communication with buyers to coordinate logistics services and assists with accounting issues
• Works with soybean origination team to maximize backhaul opportunities
• Defines and updates team regularly with merchandising and pricing strategy as well as SHP/SBM market outlook   

• Reviews the daily position to confirm accuracy & follows up with customers to ensure timely payment of invoices
• Stays up to date on competitive landscape through regular engagement with peers & end users
• Signs up new farmers with LDC using the MyLDC customer portal
• Works with soybean meal and soy hull pellet customers to address, evaluate and settle quality claims

Additional Responsibilities

• Answer phone calls and provide merchandising services to farmers.
  • Gathers news, statistics and information related to individual commodity supply and demand from customers and trade sources, and distributes that information to the remainder of the group to support overall strategic trading/positioning (i.e., contributes to research function).

• Helps manage receivables and facilitates innovative methods to keep accounts receivable and average number of days to pay at a minimum.

• Identifies, qualifies and captures new business; develops and contributes to customer/supplier list.
• Assists other team members when needed (soybean origination team, soybean meal merchandising team, etc.)
• Works closely with soybean receiving office, learns Compuweigh and probing / grading operations.
• Occasionally communicates with truckers/suppliers regarding quality.
• Weekend work.
• Customer visits.
• Crop tours.
• Other duties as assigned

Qualifications

Experience

Basic qualifications:

• 1-3 years in the grain business in a merchandising capacity
• Experience arranging freight logistics and dispatching trucks

Preferred

• Experience with rail logistics and a familiarity with the eastern rail market

Knowledge/Skills/Abilities (including any physical demands)

Basic qualifications:

• Working knowledge of futures markets, hedging and arbitrage
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Strong quantitative skills, including basic knowledge of statistics, algebra (e.g., supply and demand relationships, analysis of price relationships)
• Ability to organize multiple responsibilities, prioritize workload and perform multiple tasks simultaneously
• Ability to work with minimal supervision
• Proficiency with spreadsheet and word processing software, (e.g., Excel and MS Word).
• Must have valid driver’s license

Additional Information

Equipment Used

• Typical office equipment: PC, telephone, fax machine.

Working Conditions

• Primarily climate-controlled office environment.  Periodic visits to industrial operations areas are necessary with exposure during such visits to variety of temperatures and prevailing weather conditions. Interacts closely with personnel in other departments and company locations, interacts closely with middle and senior level management, domestic travel to visit customers required (up to 30% at times).  Call-ins or the extension of regular working hours (50-60 hours per week) are occasionally needed to complete time-sensitive projects or respond to emergencies.

Employee Supervision

• No direct supervision responsibilities but may supervise Merchandisers in the future

Decision Making/Accountability

• Processes a variety of information and data