Senior Food Processing Specialist

Job Title: Senior Food Processing Specialist (2 positions)

Program: Feed the Future Food Systems Activity

Reports to: Senior Food Systems Manager

Location: Nairobi with travel to Western, Eastern and Northern Kenya

Grade: 8

TechnoServe Background

TechnoServe works with enterprising people in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses and industries. We are a nonprofit organization that develops business solutions to poverty by linking people to information, capital and markets. With more than four decades of proven results, we believe in the power of private enterprise to transform lives.

Program Overview

The Kenya Feed the Future Local Food Systems is a five-year USAID project designed to increase agricultural production and productivity, increase resilience capacities, and improve nutrition outcomes in 9 counties in Kenya – Bungoma, Busia, Garissa, Homa Bay, Isiolo, Kakamega, Makueni, Migori, and Siaya. The program will also support investments in other regions of Kenya to support the flow of food, goods, and services to the 9 focal counties and strategic corridors in the Northern ASALs.

Food systems are critical to Kenya’s economic development, as the agri-food sector contributes to more than half of the nation’s gross domestic product and employs over 70% of the rural population. Kenya’s agri-food sector has the potential to support inclusive and resilient economic growth and deliver nutritious diets to vulnerable populations. LFS will capitalize on Kenya’s economic growth and growing cities, the emergence of innovative and dynamic agri-food businesses, and the GOK’s investments in economic development to accelerate inclusive growth in the agri-food sector.

LFS supports four priority objectives, as well as a number of crosscutting objectives, to catalyze transformational changes in the food system. These include:

Increased productivity, profitability, and diversity in the local food system

Strengthened resilience capacity for HHs, communities, and institutions to mitigate risks and shocks in the local food system,

Increased access to and consumption of adequate safe, nutritious food, especially by women and children

Strengthened collaboration, iterative learning, and adaptive management for effective locally led development

LFS will use key leverage points to anchor its approach to implementation of five work streams:

First and last mile service provision

Entrepreneurship development

Food and Feed Markets / Processing

Policy Alignment and Influence

Collaboration, learning, and adapting

The Role

TechnoServe seeks to fill two (2) Senior Food Processing Specialist positions. Reporting to the Senior Food Systems Manager, the Senior Food Processing Specialists leads overseeing the provision of strategic advisory services to food processors and other clients at the national and county levels. Role holders oversee all engagements with selected clients, and collaborates with other team members on the Technical Integration Team, Regional Implementation Teams and across the project, and the TechnoServe’s Global Food Processing Practice to ensure coordinated and impactful implementation.

The Senior Food Processing Specialist is part of the FSA Technical Integration Team and provides technical expertise in the identification, design, implementation and effectiveness of food/feed fortification, processing and manufacture for clients on FSA’s food /feed processing work stream. The success measure for this role is an improved and efficient first/last mile distribution, agro-processing practices, food safety, handling and storage across relevant counties in Kenya’s food system. Responsible for technical leadership in food policy and implementation, policy implementation, collaboration and learning among key food processing stakeholders while responding to consumer demand for safe, nutritious food including at/with local food markets.

Key Roles and Responsibilities: 

Stakeholder Engagement: Client Relationship Management

• Promote information exchange and network building by leading the hosting of 1-2 (or more) business-to-business platforms each year, with the goal of supporting food processors to secure new contractual relationships with suppliers of equipment, digital services, inputs, equipment; as well as equip them with information and contacts that will enable them to navigate regulations and certification processes.
• Identify and establish relationships with organizations with technical expertise in the nutrition, food processing, manufacture, supply chain and distribution, etc. field that FSA can partner with to promote functionality of Kenya’s Food System.
• In coordination with other team members identify clients (processors, industry bodies, aggregators etc.) that can have an impact on the availability of nutritious food products and on broader food systems.
• Clearly identify and document their aspirations and challenges; plot a mutually agreed intended impact and route to reach it.
• Plan activities to ensure that the shared objectives are met within the set times and resources and that impact is maximized.
• Effectively manage, maintain and nurture relationships with these clients.
• Ensure regular and responsive communication to monitor progress, identify problems at an early stage and respond to them.
• In coordination with regional implementation teams, map eligible county-based food markets for improvements in e.g. market management, food safety and handling, or needed technical assistance.

Subject Area Leadership: Coordination of Technical Assistance

• Support food/feed processors to improve their business and financial management and operational. This support will first focus on processing and business management to identify cost-efficiencies that can unlock additional revenue for the processor, which in turn enable investment to increase processing capacity.
• Support processors to develop strategies for sourcing that enable them to secure the quality and quantity of raw material required, while also providing services, price premiums, or a consistent market for the farmers selling to them.
• Clearly communicate to clients the full range of support that is available to them from TechnoServe and relevant global, and national food processing organizations.
• Provide on-the-ground support for implementation of technical advice, on issues identified by the business diagnostics carried out post-client mapping.
• Source and facilitate relevant technical expertise from potential partner organizations to support food and feed processors and local food markets. Liaise relationships between identified and engaged technical experts and processors to ensure clear expectations and smooth communication.
• Ensure the FSA Technical and Regional Implementation Leads are fully informed on progress, challenges and successes assignments with each food/feed processor or and food markets.
• In collaboration with other team members at country and regional level develop and deliver standardized training and quick win solutions to less sophisticated clients with simpler technical and business needs.
• Facilitate university student internships / apprenticeship initiative with processors, whereby interns will be assigned for a defined period to provide technical support and address identified issues.

Program Management

• Support the development (at the technical integration team) and coordination (at the regional team level) and implementation of food processing-related activities in the execution of project work plans, and budgets,
• In coordination with the Senior Food Systems Manager, design technical parameters for an open call for food and feed processors sourcing raw material from FSA’s zones of influence to receive technical or grant assistance.
• In coordination with the Senior Food Systems Manager, work closely with the CLA Unit and Finance and Admin units to ensure alignment of resources, activities, and key performance indicators related to policy engagement.
• Support the development schedules, tools, and processes for deploying a robust food processor and local food markets engagement strategy;
• Develop, design and oversee grant activities that support FSA’s policy influencing or strengthening objective;
• Identify issues and risks related to implementation promptly, suggesting appropriate program adjustments
• Lead, or in supporting roles, manage, contribute to, and provide quality control to data analysis and report writing at technical national integration team level related to the food/feed processing work stream.
• Ensure activities carried out are in accordance with TechnoServe and donor requirements.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

• Work with the Monitoring and Evaluation, and CLA unit, provide anecdotal evidence of impact, including success stories, case studies and lessons learnt
• document and disseminate lessons learned, best practices, and project impacts to inform future initiatives
• Collaborate with the M&E team to monitor and evaluate program progress.
• Support or contribute to knowledge management activities including writing articles on project developments, learning or opinion pieces.
• In coordination with the M&E Manager, manage collection of client data, review data for accuracy.
• Contribute towards explanations of metric results and provide input to recommendations to adapt program approach as necessary to maximize impact.

Sector Wide Trainings

• Support the FSA regional implementation teams, technical integration team, identified industry experts and local training institutes with technical input on identification of appropriate topics and development of curricula for sector wide training in support of broader industry development.

Innovation and Best Practices:

• Develop innovative approaches to enhance TechnoServe’s work and share these innovations to promote the adoption of best practices within the organization.

Representation and Networking:

• Represent the program at networking events with private and public sector actors, as per the guidance of the COP and DCOP

Miscellaneous

• Perform other related duties as required to contribute to the program’s success.

Competencies

Strategic and Innovative Thinker

• Identifies opportunities and builds strategic relationships with other organizations to help achieve identified goals.
• Proactively takes advantage of opportunities to learn and actively applies new knowledge and skill.
• Analyses both successes and failures for clues to improvement.
• Innovative to try new ideas to find solutions
• Analytical, able to diagnose problems, identify the key issues, and think strategically to evaluate alternative courses of action and produce a logical, practical, and acceptable solution. Works persistently to overcome obstacles
• Asks questions and seeks out information from multiple sources, learns from mistakes, sees change as an opportunity.

Team Player

• Works cooperatively and flexibly with other members of the team to achieve a common goal. Ability to build and maintain effective relationships and networks.
• Effectively plans, schedules, and prioritizes activities.
• Able to take ownership of decisions on areas of responsibility but show sound judgment in escalating issues where necessary.

Effective Communicator

• Listens openly and effectively and ensures accurate understanding; able to adjust communication to the needs of the audience and work at multiple levels; facilitates the open exchange of ideas and information in individual and group situations.
• Transparent in dealings with others, admits mistakes, and is trusted. Inspires confidence in the team of honest intentions and fairness.
• Able to analyze and express themselves clearly in business writing.

Additional tasks that may be assigned in an agile program implementation approach

Desired Qualifications and Experience

• Degree in food science, food nutrition or a related degree, preferably at Master’s level.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in the food industry or as a consultant to the industry
• Good knowledge and understanding of the challenges of food processing in Kenya, both technical and business
• Previous work on a donor-funded program, ideally USAID
• Design and delivery of training
• Managing local consultants/BDS providers
• Demonstrated track record of building and managing strong client and stakeholder relationships, including with government, civil society and private sector
• Strong gender leadership, supervisory, problem-solving, communication, and coordination skills required.
• Demonstrated commitment to advancing gender equality.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and problem-solving skills
• Willingness to travel extensively within FSA’s Kenya zone of influence,
• Proven ability to develop strategies and conduct analysis on complex commercial questions
• Experience in authoring concise and well-written reports and presentations
• Strategic and analytical thinking skills
• Exceptional interpersonal and cross-cultural skills
• Fluent user of MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in the FSA zone of influence an added advantage
• Proven experience in incorporating complexity awareness with programmatic implementation
• Proven experience with the Kenyan agricultural and livestock food/feed sector at the national and county level, and from a private sector perspective.

Required Languages

Fluency in English and Kiswahili, with excellent oral and written communication skills required. Knowledge of local languages is an added advantage.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Demonstrated Leadership: Proven ability to inspire and lead teams toward program goals, fostering adaptability and creative problem-solving.
• Results-driven: Committed to achieving measurable impact and program outcomes, consistently seeking improvement opportunities.
• Strategic Management and Adaptability: Proficient in systems thinking, quick to adapt strategies in response to change, with expertise with policy influencing within Market Systems Development (MSD) approaches,
• Problem-Solving Expertise: Strong at addressing market system challenges and developing innovative solutions.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Skilled in building effective relationships with diverse stakeholders to drive collaboration and results.
• Gender and Inclusion: Familiar with gender-sensitive and inclusive program approaches, dedicated to reducing social and economic inequalities.
• Initiative and Independence: Takes initiative, works independently, demonstrating self-motivation and proactiveness.
• Effective Communication: Friendly and approachable, facilitating communication and collaboration with colleagues and stakeholders.

Supervisory Responsibilities: 

• Where applicable STTA.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

We encourage all qualified individuals who share TechnoServe’s vision of improving the lives of others through proven business solutions to apply.

With our commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and affirmative action employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, HIV/AIDS status, protected veteran status, disability and all other protected classes.

We are also proud of our commitment to protecting staff, partners, and beneficiaries from abuse and exploitation and thoroughly vet all final candidates through rigorous background and reference checks.

If you have a disability that affects your ability to use our online system to apply for a position at TechnoServe please contact the Human Resources at [email protected] or call +1 202 785 4515

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