Inside Sales Associate

Inside Sales Associate

Hardie's Fresh Foods has been delivering the freshest produce and finest specialty ingredients to Texas kitchens for over 80 years. Family-owned and Texas-proud, Hardie's started with a single truck and a passion for quality. Today, we're a trusted partner to chefs, restaurants, and foodservice professionals across the Lone Star State—supplying everything from peak-season fruits and vegetables to artisan cheeses, premium olive oils, chocolates, and center-of-the-plate proteins like meats and seafood. With deep relationships across local farms and global producers, we stay ahead of culinary trends while staying true to what matters: dependable service, outstanding quality, and helping chefs create memorable menus. Rooted in tradition, driven by innovation—Hardie's is here to fuel kitchens with the ingredients that make food shine.

Position Summary

The Inside Sales Associate plays a crucial role in generating revenue and fostering customer relationships for the company. They are responsible for proactively reaching out to potential and existing customers, understanding their needs, and promoting products and services to meet those needs. This position requires strong communication skills, sales acumen, and a customer-centric approach to drive sales growth and customer satisfaction.

What You'll Do

• Report to work on time with a professional attitude.
• Receive incoming calls from customers, prepare orders and expedite.
• Suggest and sell additional items over the phone.
• Inform customer of items not ordered or out of stock per regular ordering process offering subs where available.
• Review accuracy of incoming orders, collect and input orders submitted via fax, email, voicemail.
• Ensure accuracy of outgoing, entered orders.
• Work with outside sales team reporting irregularities, problems and requests for outside sales assistance. Direct phone calls to the appropriate team members.
• Builds and maintains customer relationships.
• Deal professionally on the phone and in person with customers, vendors and fellow employees. Cooperate with other members of the sales team and departments to ensure the customer receives an excellent service level.
• Assist with processing special orders and customer price lists.
• Provide backup vacation coverage for Sales Representatives and assist with workload of fellow team members when absent.
• 85% of work day is spent on telephone.
• Attend inside/outside sales meetings and take part in sales activities, as needed.
• Other projects or tasks assigned by Manager as needed.
• Document and keep record of customer complaints on Footprint and create quarterly report of same

About You

• Minimum education: High School Diploma.
• Previous food service distribution Inside Sales/Customer Service and/or call center experience preferred.
• Strong knowledge of food service products, product categories and vendor community preferred.
• Must be a team player with a positive attitude.
• Excellent verbal, telephone and written communication skills. Data entry and 10-key experience required.
• Self-motivated, professional, goal oriented and able to handle multiple tasks.
• Must have a sense of urgency and be able to work under pressure.
• Flexibility: ability to work well with all departments and levels of staff both internally & externally.
• Follow through skills a must.
• Bilingual (Spanish/English) a plus.

The above job description is not an all-inclusive list of duties and standards of the position. Incumbents will follow any other instructions, and perform any other related duties as assigned by their supervisor.

Perks & Benefits

• Paid Vacations, Paid Holidays
• Health, Dental and Medical Benefits
• Weekly pay
• Life Insurance
• 5% above cost for our high-quality food products
• Employee discounts for travel and events
• 401k
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan

The Chefs' Warehouse is an Equal Opportunity Employer that does not discriminate based on actual or perceived race, creed, color, religion, alienage or national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, disability or handicap, sex, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Our management team is dedicated to this policy with respect to recruitment, hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, training, compensation, benefits, employee activities and general treatment during employment. We are dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse workforce.