Consultancy Opportunity: Advancing Dairy Innovation in Georgia

CONSULTANCY OPPORTUNITY

Advancing Dairy Innovation in Georgia

USDA Food for Progress Safety and Quality Investment in Livestock Project

Tbilisi, Georgia

Background: Land O’Lakes’ Venture37 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping communities around the world build economies by strengthening agriculture from farm-to-fork, helping businesses grow, and linking farmers to markets. Since our start in 1981, we have been leveraging nearly 100 years of expertise in dairy, animal nutrition, crop inputs and agricultural insights from our close affiliate, Land O’Lakes, Inc., a farmer-owned agribusiness committed to fulfilling its purpose of feeding human progress.

Our team is made up of nearly 350 employees who are committed to market-led approaches, and passionate about collaborating locally to create lasting inclusive economic growth. By unlocking the potential of agriculture for the last 40 years, the lives of more than 3 million people have been transformed through nearly 300 programs in more than 80 countries.

Project Description: The USDA Food for Progress Safety and Quality Investment in Livestock (SQIL) project is an eight-year demand-driven project that will improve food safety and quality along Georgia’s dairy and beef value chains. From farm-to-fork, USDA Food for Progress SQIL aims to reduce losses, improve food safety and quality, boost competitiveness, productivity and trade within the Georgian dairy and beef market systems. The project achieves these goals through an integrated approach of expanding market access, improving sanitary standards, strengthening postharvest handling and storage, increasing productivity, improving access to finance, and promoting regulatory reforms.

Purpose and Objectives of the Assignment: The Consultant will work with select USDA Food for Progress SQIL portfolio companies to offer technical assistance to support their development of new or the expansion of niche dairy products. In particular, the Consultant will work intensively with three dairy processors to offer onsite consultations and technical assistance at each facility as the enterprises’ seek to test new products utilizing the newly installed equipment and support the companies’ ability to bring the products to market. The products that will be supported include:

• Company 1: Production of cream cheese.
• Company 2: Improvement of cheeses’ storage conditions.
• Company 3: Production of European cheeses.

In addition, the Consultant will conduct introductory onsite technical visits to an estimated six dairy processors that have shown an interest in launching the production of new dairy products, but have limitations related to the necessary equipment/machinery, supplemental ingredients required and/or knowledge or recipes to launch production.

Consultant Tasks: To complete this scope of work, the Consultant is expected to complete the following task:

• Prepare a questionnaire to receive information from the project ahead of time on each of the visited companies’ equipment, production capacity, portfolio of products, etc.
• Provide an envisioned five-days of individual technical assistance during the pilot production phase to beneficiaries who have already installed equipment to produce new dairy products.
• Provide short report on conducted individual technical assistance with these three firms.
• Provide half-day onsite technical assistance visits to an estimated six dairy processors that are seeking to improve and / or launch new dairy products.
• Provide individual reports per facility detailing the recommended equipment and instructions for starting new dairy product production.

Deliverables: Under this scope of work, the Consultant is expected to complete the following deliverables:

• Provide questionnaire to inform onsite technical assistance visits
• Provide report of technical assistance provided including recommendations to each of the three companies (maximum of 10 pages per company).
• introductory consultancy visits, detailing the recommended equipment and instructions for starting new dairy product production for each beneficiary.

Deliverables should be submitted electronically in English.

Requested Skills and Qualifications: The ideal candidate will present the following skills and qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience providing technical assistance to dairy processors in the development of new dairy products – including familiarity with Georgian and European style dairy products.
• Prior experience working in developing economies.
• Strong writing and communication skills.

Travel: Travel will be required to complete the scope of work. The Consultant shall be available to travel for up to two weeks in Georgia during October or November and again at an agreed upon date with the project and private sector partners. Travel arrangements will be made by Land O’Lakes Venture37 in accordance with Land O’Lakes and USDA guidelines.

Evaluation Criteria: All received complete applications will be evaluated against the following criteria:

• Professional experience in relation to the Scope of Work and the Requested Skills and Qualifications (65%)
• Cost competitiveness and reasonableness of proposed daily rate (35%)

Application Instructions: Interested and qualified applicants should submit their CV and proposed daily rate for completing the scope of work. The final number of days will be agreed upon by Land O’Lakes Venture37 and the selected applicant.

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