Senior Application Manager - Food & Beverage Applications

About the role

We are recruiting on behalf of an international flavour and food technology company to lead its application laboratory in Nairobi. The Senior Application Manager will combine hands‑on formulation, customer project management, team leadership and commercial support.

Key responsibilities

• Lead beverage and sweet‑food formulation and application development.
• Develop prototypes from benchmarking and recipe design through sensory testing and stability assessment.
• Lead customer product‑development projects from concept to commercial production.
• Manage customer trials, factory trials and scale‑up activities.
• Provide technical formulation and manufacturing support to customers and sales teams.
• Lead, coach and develop application technicians.
• Develop and maintain local and regional application portfolios.
• Identify emerging food and beverage trends and translate them into product opportunities.
• Support key‑account strategies and regional business‑development initiatives.
• Collaborate with global R&D, technical, flavour and commercial teams.
• Support technical troubleshooting and customer problem‑solving.
• Ensure application activities meet quality, food‑safety and regulatory requirements.

Required profile

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Food Science & Technology, Chemistry, Pharmacy or a related discipline.
• 7–10+ years experience in the food and beverage industry.
• Proven project‑management and technical leadership experience.
• Strong customer‑facing and communication skills.
• Knowledge of food regulations across African markets.
• Willingness to travel approximately 30% of the time.
• Excellent English communication skills; French or another language is an advantage.

Required skills

• Food and beverage product development.
• Beverage formulation.
• Practical knowledge of pH, Brix, acidity and viscosity measurement.
• Sensory testing.
• Experience in food or beverage manufacturing.
• Use of CRM tools, preferably Salesforce.