Beverage Development Specialist (Mixologist) - West Africa at Kerry Group Plc

About the role

• Creates innovative drink concepts for Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Develops unique operationally sensible concepts for key accounts. 
• Cover the West  African market and assist the Regional Sales Manager – West Africa to drive demos to end customers, conduct Masterclasses, Trainings, distributor sales team and barista trainings and drive the penetration of DaVinci gourmet in the region.

Key responsibilities

• Builds and maintains on-trend beverage concept library to support national brands.
• Assists with new product development efforts, custom and branded, from concept to commercialization.
• Responsible for creating gold standard and approving benchtop and scale-up samples prior to presentation to customer. 
• Responsible for internal beverage training: on premise applications, coffee, chai, and smoothies. 
• Assists with creative brainstorming and copy writing for beverage related concepts – to help merchandise concepts at store level.
• Assists with new product development efforts, key shows and key account calls as needed.
• Develops relationships with beverage equipment suppliers and partners.

Qualifications and skills

• Requires 4+ years experience in beverage industry, particularly on-premise/bar segment and coffee market. 
• Bachelor’s degree required. 
• Knowledge of Mixology is essential  
• Must have knowledge of commonly used concepts, practices and procedures, including beverage equipment.  
• A wide degree of creativity and latitude is expected. 
• Travel required (50%). 

Key attributes:

• Adept in mixology; professional; understands full workings of alcohol and coffee bar
• Presentation skills – articulate, entertaining
• Creativity. Ability to think out of the box in developing solutions for customers and communicating/selling ideas internally.
• Communication skills – ability to build rapport easily
• Well-rounded assortment of industry contacts and relationships, preferably with key operators and leading spirit companies.
• Strong organizational and project management skills