Senior Financial Analyst – Food Distribution

Valley Fruit & Produce Company is seeking an experienced Senior Financial Analyst to join our Finance team and serve as a key financial partner to company leadership and operations.

For more than 100 years, Valley has operated in the fresh produce and food distribution industry. As our business continues to expand its food-service operations, including our growing K-12 school nutrition business, we are looking for a hands-on finance professional who understands the unique financial and operational challenges of a perishable inventory environment.

This is not a purely desk-based FP&A position. The successful candidate will be comfortable working closely with operations, sales, accounting, and executive leadership to understand what is happening in the business and translate operational activity into meaningful financial analysis.

What You'll Do

What We're Looking For

Key Responsibilities

· Review and analyze daily, weekly, and monthly financial and operational KPIs across all areas of the business.

· Analyze revenue, units sold, gross margin, product costs, labor, overtime, freight, warehouse costs, and operating expenses to identify the drivers behind financial performance.

· Identify and explain trends, significant variances, risks, and opportunities based on financial and operational data.

· Perform detailed profitability analysis by customer, product, category, sales representative, route, business unit, and sales channel.

· Compare actual performance against budget, forecast, prior year, prior periods, and established targets, identifying and explaining material variances.

· Develop and maintain financial dashboards and KPI reporting that provide management with clear visibility into business performance.

· Analyze inventory performance and working-capital metrics, including inventory turns, DSO, DPO, DIO, and Cash Conversion Cycle.

· Perform customer profitability and cost-to-serve analysis, incorporating product margin, freight, labor, delivery costs, credits, and other relevant costs.

· Build financial models and scenario analyses to evaluate changes in volume, pricing, product costs, labor, freight, and other business drivers.

· Support forecasting, budgeting, Annual Operating Plan (AOP), and long-range planning (LRP) through financial analysis and modeling.

· Partner with Sales, Operations, Purchasing, Transportation, Warehouse, and other departments to understand operational results and quantify their financial impact.

· Identify opportunities to improve gross margin, cost efficiency, productivity, and working capital through data-driven analysis.

· Prepare financial analysis and presentations for executive management, clearly communicating key findings, business drivers, risks, and opportunities.

· Perform ad hoc financial and operational analysis to support management decision-making.

Position Focus

The Financial Analyst is responsible for converting financial and operational data into actionable business insights. The role focuses on performance analysis, KPIs, profitability, forecasting support, financial modeling, and decision support.

Accounting ownership, month-end close, reconciliations, financial statement preparation, accounting policies, internal controls, audits, and compliance remain under the Controller and Accounting functions.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, or a related field.
• 5–8+ years of progressive experience in Finance, Accounting, FP&A, or a related financial function.
• Previous professional experience working with perishable products is strongly required, such as fresh produce, food distribution, grocery, food manufacturing, refrigerated products, or another high-turn/perishable inventory environment.
• *Prior experience with one of the Big 5 accounting firms is strongly preferred.*
• Strong FP&A experience, including forecasting, budgeting, financial modeling, and variance analysis.
• Strong understanding of P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, GAAP, and financial controls.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills.
• Experience working with ERP and financial reporting systems.
• Ability to take complex financial information and turn it into clear, actionable recommendations for senior leadership.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, operational environment with changing priorities.

The underlying job description also identifies experience in manufacturing, distribution, or food service as particularly relevant and calls for advanced Excel, financial modeling, ERP/reporting-system experience, and strong analytical capabilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• CPA, CMA, and/or MBA.
• Experience in fresh produce, food distribution, grocery, food manufacturing, or refrigerated/perishable goods.
• Experience supporting distribution centers, warehouse operations, supply chain, or food-service operations.
• Experience with inventory costing and margin analysis in a high-volume environment.
• Bilingual English/Spanish is a plus.
• Demonstrated experience improving or automating financial reporting processes.

Schedule & Work Environment

This is a hybrid position based in Los Angeles, California. The regular schedule is Monday through Friday, beginning at 7:00 AM.

The position requires four days per week onsite and allows one remote workday per week. Because this role partners closely with Operations and company leadership, candidates should be comfortable working onsite in an active food distribution environment.

Who Will Be Successful Here?

We are looking for someone who is analytical but also operationally minded. You should be comfortable getting beyond the spreadsheet to understand what is driving the numbers—inventory movement, product costs, customer pricing, labor, freight, shrink/spoilage, and operational decisions.

Candidates who have worked with perishable inventory will have a strong advantage because understanding the financial impact of product movement, shelf life, inventory turns, and changing costs is important to this role.

If you enjoy working closely with business leaders, asking questions, digging into financial results, and helping an established company make data-driven decisions as it grows, we would like to hear from you.

Valley Fruit & Produce Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Pay: $115,000.00 - $125,000.00 per year

Benefits

• Bereavement leave
• Dental insurance
• Employee assistance program
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Retirement plan
• Vision insurance

People with a criminal record are encouraged to apply

Application Question(s)

• Do you have at least 5 years of progressive experience in Finance, Accounting, FP&A, or a related financial function?
• Do you have prior experience with one of he Big 5 Accounting Firms?

Education

* Bachelor's (Required)

Work Location: In person