Commercial Coffee Mill Manager

About the role

Tatu Coffee Company Limited, a specialty coffee producer owned by Rendeavour, is looking for a Commercial Coffee Mill Manager to oversee its dry milling operations. The facility processes coffee for external clients such as independent farmers, large estates and cooperatives. The manager takes full custody of client property, maximizes milling yields, ensures 100% batch traceability and drives plant profitability while complying with Kenyan agricultural, environmental, labour and safety laws.

Key responsibilities

• Maximize premium grades (AA, AB) and recovery rates by configuring milling machinery, and schedule mill runs during peak harvest to optimize capacity and revenue
• Handle customized client requests such as color sorting, bespoke bagging and certified coffees (Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance)
• Segregate client lots to prevent cross-contamination and act as technical liaison for cooperatives and smallholders, hosting clients and providing detailed milling reports
• Resolve discrepancies between intake weight, moisture analysis and final outturns using auditable documentation
• Ensure compliance with AFA/Coffee Directorate regulations, NEMA waste and dust controls, OSHA safety standards and food safety rules
• Run preventive maintenance on hullers, graders, density separators and color sorters, manage the fleet and assist in annual OPEX and CAPEX budgets

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in a technical field such as mechanical engineering, agricultural economics, food science and technology, agro-processing or industrial engineering
• 5-8 years of operations management in an industrial agricultural processing plant, including at least 3 years in a commercial coffee dry mill
• Ability to negotiate, resolve conflicts and explain technical outturn data to cooperative boards and smallholders

Required skills

• Mechanical calibration of sorting and milling equipment and preventive maintenance
• Use of ERP and inventory management software for real-time stock tracking
• Target KPIs: milling loss within 18.5%-20%, 95% machine uptime, 90%+ client retention and 8,500 MT milled per year