Joseph Kamanu is an International Tea Expert with Wide Professional Experience in the Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) region spanning over 33 years. He is currently working on a number of international and regional contractual assignments in the tea industry in the region. He is a member of the Tea Technical Committee (TEC) at Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS). He has wide experience in the Tea Value Chain from Production, Processing, Blending & Packaging, Marketing and Research. He has extensive practical working experience of more than 18 years with Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) Limited, in management of over twelve tea processing factories, three of them as the Unit (General) Manager. He has also worked as the General Manager for a Tea Business Unit in Ethiopia consisting of a Tea Estate, Tea Factory and Tea Packing Facility.

He has over fifteen years’ experience in Consultancy in Tea Quality, Tea Processing, Quality Management Systems and Food Safety Management Systems (QMS & FSMS), Sustainable Agriculture, Voluntary Certification Standards, Climate Change Adaptation & Mitigation, Resource Efficiency & Circular Production (RECP), Feasibility & Evaluation Surveys, Market Access, and Business Support for SMEs.

He has conducted quality improvement audits in over 100 tea processing factories in eleven countries in the ECSA region where tea is grown; Burundi, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. He has attended a number of tea international forums in China, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, Uganda and Zimbabwe as a guest speaker. He has published three books on the tea sector; 1. A Tea Growers Manual on Tea Farming, which has been translated into four languages (Chichewa, Portuguese, Kirundi and Kiswahili), 2.  A Training Manual for Smallholder Farmers, and 3. Tea Processing Handbook on Quality and Good Manufacturing Practices, which has been translated to French. He has also published Five Scientific Papers on Tea Processing in International Journals.

Joseph holds an MSc. in Food Science and BSc. in Food Science and Technology from the University of Nairobi and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management, from the Kenya Management University. He is also a qualified Leader Auditor in QMS & FSMS as well as a Lead Assessor in Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Audit (EIA/EA); he has undertaken many audits and trainings on these areas of specialization. He has been a part time lecturer in three universities in Kenya; University of Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology and Kenya Management University, on the subjects of Food & Tea Processing, General & Quality Management and Practical Research.