Marrakech – Morocco has inaugurated the first pan-African coffee center at the Tanger Med port complex, positioning the North African country as a global gateway for African coffee exports to Europe, the United States, and Asia.
The African Coffee Hub represents a fundamental shift in the continent’s coffee trade structure. The center aims to eliminate the traditional system that has long constrained African producers through dependence on European intermediaries and expensive, complex supply chains.
The new model enables direct purchasing from African producers, with coffee consolidation, quality control, and preparation taking place in Morocco before rapid export to international markets through Tanger Med. This approach reduces costs while increasing value added within Africa.
Sanaa Ben Abdelkhaleq, CEO of the African Coffee Hub, explained the center’s primary objective. “Our goal is to enable African coffee to reach the world without intermediaries, while ensuring quality, traceability, and economic fairness for producers,” she stated. “Tanger Med port represents the natural location to lead this revolution.”
Africa remains a heavyweight in global coffee production
African coffee plays a crucial role in global espresso production, supplying some of the world’s most sought-after varieties and shaping the flavor profiles preferred by top roasters.
At the heart of this ecosystem is Ethiopia, the continent’s largest producer with over 470,000-500,000 tons annually, representing roughly 3-4% of global output and sustaining more than 15 million Ethiopian farmers.
Uganda follows closely with nearly 400,000 tons, driven by robusta dominance, while Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, and Kenya maintain strong export-oriented sectors.
Despite producing over 10% of the world’s coffee, Africa captures only a fraction of the global market value, largely due to limited processing and branding locally.
Yet rising specialty coffee demand – particularly for Ethiopian arabica, Tanzanian peaberry, and Kenyan AA – combined with expanding intra-African trade under the AfCFTA, positions the continent for accelerated growth if countries scale roasting capacity, upgrade logistics, and strengthen price-risk management systems.
As such, the new hub targets coffee from major African producing countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania. These origins are essential to the global espresso industry and represent some of the world’s finest coffee varieties.
The center plans to consolidate significant portions of African coffee production within a single platform. It will provide advanced quality standards and monitoring, continuous flows to Europe, the United States, and Asia, and support for farmers to develop production quality through transparency and sustainability across all supply chain stages.
By leveraging Africa’s reputation for high-quality arabica and specialty-grade beans, the new center aims to forge direct supply relationships with European and American roasters, strengthening value chains and ensuring African producers capture a greater share of the global coffee market.
A new model for African commodity exports
The project aligns with Morocco’s broader African strategy as a unique logistics platform connecting Africa and Europe. The initiative supports the kingdom’s economic diplomacy on the continent while creating local employment opportunities and developing expertise in the coffee sector.
The hub ensures complete traceability from bean to cup, addressing international market demands for transparency in coffee sourcing.
The facility operates within the Tanger Med complex, Africa’s largest port by container traffic and the leading container port in the Mediterranean. Located strategically on the Strait of Gibraltar, Tanger Med ranks among the world’s top 20 ports and serves as a crucial trade link between Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
This strategic positioning gives the African Coffee Hub direct access to major international markets without relying on traditional, costly export routes, allowing it to compete more efficiently on the global stage.
At the same time, the project promises fairer compensation for African producers, ensuring that by removing layers of intermediaries, a larger share of the value generated stays within the producing countries themselves.
The model preserves the stringent quality standards required by international buyers while finally aligning Africa’s world-class coffee reputation with equitable economic returns for the farmers behind it.
The African Coffee Hub plans to announce its first agreements with African coffee-producing countries in the coming weeks. The center will also reveal its operational calendar, key logistics and industrial partnerships, and the official inauguration date at Tanger Med.
