The Business Awakening Conferencing (BAC) is inviting entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders to join its three-country agro-processing prospecting tour, a 12-day commercial journey through Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire and Rwanda.
BAC will curate business summits, masterclasses and conferences for pan-African entrepreneurs, executives and investors across Africa’s emerging coffee markets.
The tour will explore opportunities across the continent’s agricultural value chains, using coffee as a practical classroom to examine the broader agro-processing potential.
The central question is one of beneficiation, where industry leaders will converge to map out how Africa can move beyond producing and exporting raw commodities to processing, packaging, branding, financing, distributing and trading higher-value products.
The tour will run from 27 October to 7 November 2026, with the Tanzania leg taking place from 27 to 29 October, Côte d’Ivoire from 1 to 3 November and Rwanda from 5 to 7 November.
Founded by governance strategist Cindy Dibete and breakthrough strategist Buyani Zwane, the BAC’s tour is designed to move entrepreneurs beyond conversations about Africa’s economic potential towards identifying where they can invest, trade, partner and build businesses within its value chains.
Coffee provides a useful case study because much of the value in the coffee economy is generated beyond the farm gate. Rather than presenting coffee as the destination, BAC uses the industry to demonstrate the broader commercial opportunities available through agro-processing.
According to the International Coffee Organisation, Africa recorded the largest increase in roasted coffee exports, with exports growing almost sevenfold over two decades.
However, the continent’s coffee sector remains vulnerable to price fluctuations and climate change. The organisation’s June 2026 Coffee Market Report showed that exports of all forms of coffee from Africa fell by 24.1% in May 2026, to 1.63 million bags from 2.15 million bags in May 2025. The sharp decline was simply due to a higher export base in May 2025, which was offset by price fluctuations the following year.
The record volumes in 2025 reflected a combination of a strong harvest in the 2024/25 coffee year and the release of stocks in response to higher coffee prices, which increased exportable supplies. This means Africa produced the same amount but could not export as much.
The figures illustrate both the opportunities and vulnerabilities within Africa’s coffee value chain, reinforcing the case for greater investment in agro-processing and other value-added activities beyond the farm gate.
The tour will therefore examine opportunities across processing, packaging, logistics, market access, trade finance, distribution, exports, technology and circular-economy applications.
Participants will engage with farmers, entrepreneurs, institutions and wider market ecosystems while exploring cross-border trade, investment and market expansion opportunities in each country.
Speaking at the launch on 13 August, Seipati Masokoana, chief executive of the Dirang Foundation, said African countries needed to move beyond exporting raw agricultural commodities and focus on processing products locally.
“Why can’t we process our products and export them as final products?” Masokoana said.
She said cross-border opportunities in agriculture were immense, particularly under the African Continental Free Trade Area framework.
“There is a lot that can be done in the agricultural sector beyond planting and harvesting; we can move to processing and exporting,” she said.
The launch was hosted by Regenesys Business School, which has 11 schools spanning education, science, health, law and artificial intelligence. Regenesys describes its approach as “transformative education” and “holistic development to produce ethical leaders”.
Public intellectual and geopolitical commentator Thembisa Fakude spoke about the opportunities and challenges facing South Africa in its engagement with the rest of the continent.
Fakude said social media had reshaped cross-border conversations about immigration, economic growth and governments’ responsibilities towards their citizens, while disinformation and public contestation had complicated relations between African countries.
He also reflected on perceptions of South Africa and the resistance to its attempts to drive intercontinental trade while facing the challenges of irregular immigration.
But Fakude said these tensions should not obscure the opportunities for cross-border collaboration.
The larger question, he suggested, is whether South Africa can continue to convene the continent and whether Africans can move beyond political and social tensions to build genuine commercial relationships.
He stressed that the benefits of agro-processing should also be distributed equitably.
For BAC, beneficiation provides a practical response to that challenge.
Dibete said the three-country tour was intended to help African entrepreneurs move from commodities to enterprises.
“How can African entrepreneurs move from talking about opportunity to going out there?” Dibete asked.
She said Africa produced significant agricultural value but captured more value when commodities were processed, packaged and branded locally.
“Local value-add means jobs, enterprise and retained wealth,” she said.
Dibete said coffee was a “bite-sized” entry point into a much larger conversation about agricultural processing.
“The conversation is not about coffee per se but about agro-processing,” she said.
BAC promotes circular-economy opportunities in the coffee industry, where by-products such as coffee pulp, husks and silver skin can be transformed into biochar, fertiliser, energy and other consumer goods.
Coffee is the classroom; beneficiation is the lesson; and intentional prospecting is the action. The objective is not simply to travel across African markets, but to build relationships, identify opportunities and determine where entrepreneurs can participate in, add value to and ultimately own more of the continent’s value chains.
JOIN THE BAC AGRO-TOUR: https://www.baconferencing.africa/bac-amcli/individual-registration
