The Senior Associate - Food and Nutrition is responsible for ensuring that Food for Education's (F4E) meals are not only nutritionally balanced but also practical to produce at scale, affordable, and appealing to children. This role bridges nutrition science, operational feasibility, and large-scale food production, ensuring that nutrition improvements are both evidence-based and implementable across hundreds of kitchens.
The role holder will lead efforts to optimize menus, enhance nutrient profiles, and introduce innovations in meal design and ingredient use. The role also involves monitoring and evaluating nutritional outcomes, fortifying meals where needed, and providing actionable insights that influence procurement, operations, and impact strategies.
Success in this Role
Measurably improved nutrient profiles across core menus.
Practical menu innovations that kitchens can execute consistently at scale.
Clear, credible nutrition data that informs decisions across Operations, Procurement, and Impact teams.
Stronger collaboration and capacity-building across teams, enabling sustainable implementation of nutrition improvements at all kitchens.
Key Responsibilities
Core Menu Nutrition & Cost Optimization
Own the nutritional quality of F4E’s core menus, ensuring meals are balanced, diverse, and aligned with national and international standards while remaining affordable at scale.
Recommend menu improvements grounded in evidence and realistic cost constraints.
Work closely with Procurement and Kitchen teams to align menus with ingredient availability, preparation feasibility, and production consistency.
Ensure cooking and production practices preserve nutrient integrity.
Nutrition Analysis, Fortification & Data
Lead nutritional analysis of meals, including macro- and micronutrient profiling per serving, using laboratory services and nutrition software.
Strengthen fortification approaches (e.g., iron, vitamin A, zinc) in collaboration with suppliers and partners.
Track nutritional performance over time and surface clear insights on gaps, risks, and improvement opportunities.
Pilots, Innovation & Learning
Lead trials and pilots of new ingredients, recipes, or preparation methods alongside operations before scale-up.
Research and test innovations in large-scale school feeding (e.g., biofortification, alternative proteins).
Build and maintain a practical database of nutrient-dense, locally available foods suitable for school meals.
Translate pilot learnings into scalable, operationally viable menu changes.
Policy, Education & Cross-Team Support
Contribute nutrition expertise to policy reviews, donor reporting, and documentation of nutrition outcomes.
Support nutrition education and behaviour-change initiatives in collaboration with Impact and Operations teams.
Build nutrition capacity across kitchen teams and relevant stakeholders through practical training.
Policy, Compliance & Reporting
Ensure nutritional standards comply with national school feeding policies and food-based dietary guidelines.
Generate periodic reports on menu performance, nutrient intake gaps, and improvement recommendations.
Qualifications and Experience
Bachelor’s degree in Human Nutrition, Dietetics, Food Science, or a related field (Master’s preferred).
Registered with the relevant professional or regulatory body (e.g., KNDI).
Minimum 4 years’ experience in nutrition programming, with strong exposure to large-scale or institutional feeding.
Demonstrated experience designing cost-effective menus under operational constraints.
Hands-on experience with nutritional analysis, recipe development, and end-to-end nutrition innovation.
Familiarity with fortification, local food systems, and evidence-based behaviour change approaches.
Key Competencies
Strong analytical skills in nutritional assessment and data interpretation.
Practical understanding of nutrient requirements for children aged 5–18.
Ability to balance nutrition impact with cost, feasibility, and scale.
High data literacy, including use of tools such as NutriSurvey, Excel-based models, or similar software.
Strong collaboration and communication skills across technical and operational teams.
Interested and qualified candidates should apply via the official career page: Food For Education Careers. Alternatively, follow the application link provided on the MyJobMag listing.
