CANEX Weekend arrives in Lagos from November 5 to 8, and food is very much part of the plan. Attendees can expect genuine Nigerian cuisine, dishes from across the continent, and flavours from the African diaspora. One of the highlights is the Jollof Wars, a friendly competition celebrating the iconic Jollof rice that promises to be as spirited as you would expect.
But the event is about more than good eating. Afreximbank, the African Export-Import Bank and organiser of CANEX, is using the moment to put a spotlight on the business of African food. The continent spent an estimated $65 billion importing food from outside its borders in 2025, a figure that tells you everything about how much work still needs to be done.
Khanyi Mashimbye, Afreximbank's manager of creatives, puts it plainly: "African food products should fill up African shelves." The barriers getting in the way are real, including a shortage of financing for food entrepreneurs, inconsistent standards that complicate trade between countries, the high cost of imported packaging, and limited access to both continental and global markets.
The deepest issue, though, is one of processing. Africa consistently exports its food in raw form and then buys it back once it has been transformed elsewhere. Mashimbye points to cashew nuts from Côte d'Ivoire as a clear example: roasted, salted, and shelved in a European store, that same product becomes worth more than eight times its original value as a raw commodity.
That gap, between raw export and finished product, is exactly where the opportunity lives.
Originally published by African Business.