Stagiaire chargé(e) de programme en technologie alimentaire / conservation et transformation des produits maraîchers

The intern will contribute to improving the conservation, transformation, and valorization of horticultural products from resilience sites supported by WFP in intervention zones. The role involves technical support, capacity building, and documentation under the supervision of the Programme Officer.

Responsibilities

• Participate in post-harvest loss evaluation on horticultural sites.
• Identify constraints related to storage, packaging, and marketing.
• Conduct surveys with cooperatives and women's groups.
• Contribute to identifying high-potential value chains.
• Support cooperatives in producing transformed products such as dried vegetables, vegetable powder, purees and concentrates, local juices and syrups, and market-adapted derivative products.
• Support introduction of simple drying, conservation, and packaging techniques.
• Promote good hygiene and food safety practices.
• Raise beneficiary awareness on food loss reduction.
• Organize practical transformation demonstrations.
• Train cooperative members on conservation techniques, hygiene standards, packaging, simplified labeling, and quality management.
• Develop technical sheets adapted to the local context.
• Collect data on transformation activities.
• Support monitoring of adoption of introduced techniques.
• Contribute to writing mission and monitoring reports.
• Document success stories and good practices.

Requirements

• Be a student or recent graduate in Food Technology, Agro-food Sciences and Technologies, Food Process Engineering, Food Transformation and Conservation, Agronomy with post-harvest specialization, or related discipline.
• Be enrolled in a bachelor's degree program with at least two years completed, or enrolled in a master's degree program, or recently graduated within the last 6 months.
• Have taken courses in the last 12 months.
• Be able to travel and work at the internship location.
• No direct family relationship with a WFP employee.
• First academic or practical experience in food transformation is desirable.
• Experience with rural cooperatives is an asset.
• Knowledge of horticultural systems in Guidimakha is an advantage.
• Knowledge of fruit and vegetable transformation and conservation techniques.
• Knowledge of hygiene and food safety standards.
• Ability to collect and analyze data.
• Proficiency in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
• Good communication and facilitation skills.
• Ability to work in rural field areas.
• Initiative and learning capacity.
• Sensitivity to gender and social inclusion.
• Fluency in French; English is an asset.

Skills

• Food Technology
• Food Process Engineering
• Food Transformation
• Food Conservation
• Agronomy
• Post-harvest Specialization
• Horticultural Systems Knowledge
• Fruit and Vegetable Processing
• Food Safety Regulations
• Hygiene Standards
• Data Collection
• Data Analysis
• Excel
• Word
• Power Point
• Technical Support
• Capacity Building
• Documentation
• Rural Field Work
• Communications Skills
• Facilitation Skills

Languages

French, English