Nutritionist at Unga Holding

Role Purpose:

• The overall purpose of this role is to optimize all animal feed formulations (poultry, Ruminants, swine, rabbits, horse, monkey and lab animals) as well as monitor Kenchic Formulations on monthly basis and/or as often as need arises to deliver quality, good formula margins and on-time resolution of nutrition related complaints for Unga that will also maintain Unga reputation through good quality which translates to good performance of the respective animals fed on our products, and that are competitive to maintain our Market share throughout East Africa. 
• The role also involves innovative development of new products based on the resulting gaps in the market, as well as conducting trials that analyses the cost of production against the commodity prices while using our products. The role also revolves around technical capacity building of sales team on swine and rabbits that will help in exploitation of the market increasing revenue for Unga.
• Leveraging the latest information and emerging technologies to keep Unga ahead and competitive in the market.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES AND KEY RESULTS:

Nakuru  & Nairobi  Plant Feed formulations

• Timely & quality optimization of all animal feed formulations (poultry, Ruminants, Swine, Rabbits, Horses, Monkeys, lab animals etc) 
• Monitoring of Kenchic Formulations
• Regular/ Standby  least cost reformulations on need basis 
• Hold raw material planning meeting on the 3rd Tuesday of every month from 7:30 to 8:00 am to plan for the following month’s formulations with the procurement team, plant managers, Business development manager and Farm care business controller.
• Get raw material prices from Procurement for Market prices and System prices from Plant controller
• Hold Formulation meeting with Trouw every 3rd Wednesday of the month to discuss the next month formulations, new technologies to be updated in our formulations and any formulation insights. Compile formulation report with Raw material prices, Raw material limitations and sales forecast and send to Trouw nutrition team for each months formulation
• Share monthly formulations with Plant managers for implementation
• Attend Planning meeting on every Monday to align the nutrition related needs that arise with limited raw materials, increased Rm prices, alternative Rm sourcing etc
• Prepare raw material proximate averages for the recently analyzed RMs.

Mineral Plant Formulations

• Review mineral and premixes formulations once a year since most materials used are consistent in quality. 
• Align the in- house premixes and minerals formulations  in Bestmix
• Fish Plant  Formulations
• Prepare monthly formulation data and send to Trouw by 18th of every month indicating the RM limits, prices and sales forecast
• Follow up with plant QAO for analysis of all the available raw materials and their update in the NIR so that the report can be available in the Nutriopt.
• Once the formulations are sent from Trouw Nutrition, Send to Plant Controller for costing, Send to Nairobi feeds plant manager, Production team Nairobi feeds plant, Production lead Tunga and QAO Tunga for implementation.
• Plan a meeting on the 3rd Tuesday of every month for Fish reformulation planning from 11:30 to 12:00. In the meeting include: Tunga GM, Production lead Tunga, QAO Tunga.

Production Planning 

• Prepare monthly raw material forecast for Nairobi, Nakuru and Tunga Plant in reference to the sales forecast obtained from the National sales manager, and Tunga GM to guide them on quantities of RMs to purchase
• Assist Procurement in purchase of raw material by suggesting alternative suppliers of raw materials,
• Running parametrics on new raw materials prices, alternative RMs, and varying quality of RMs to determine the suitability of those RMs in our formulations in the formulation software
• Suggesting alternative RMs (unconventional) for use in formulations eg. Bsf, lupins ,croton etc

.Swine &Rabbit Technical Advisory

• Sales monitoring of the new revamped range in the market with the sales team/ Marketing for Volume growth of both swine and rabbit portfolio.
• New product development guided by market gaps eg formulation of Pig Grower in line with KEBS standards and introducing it in the rest of the range to imitate farmers choice portfolio
• Uploading Pig Information and developing performance calculator in Fugo Smart app.
• Supporting the sales team with technical information for the Pig Range and Rabbit range
• Conducting trials involving swine and rabbits to monitor on performance.

Quality Assurance, Quality Control, Issue resolution

• Raw material and Finished product specification alignment and signoff
• Ensure that the raw material and finished products are coded right in the NIR
• Working with the QA department to sort Nutritional Customer Complaints.
• Following up with production to ensure they have implemented the correct formulations 

Job Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Animal health and  Production, animal science, animal nutrition or its equivalent 
• Minimum of 4 years’ working experience 
• Knowledge on Feed formulations using softwares  
• Demonstrate analytical skills and ability to conduct research in pursuit of new product development
• Computer literacy with advances Spreadsheet knowledge

Key Attributes/ Competencies:

• Feed formulator
• Microsoft excel & word proficiency use
• Quick to learn
• Team player
• Strategist 
• Self-driven
• Speed of execution
• Commercial Acumen