Morocco has officially inaugurated the first African Coffee Center within the strategic Tangiers Med port complex.
This hub positions the North African country as a crucial global gateway for African coffee exports destined for markets in Europe, the United States, and Asia.
The African Coffee Center represents a fundamental shift in the continent’s coffee trade structure. Its primary mission is to eliminate the traditional supply chain that often forces African producers to rely on expensive and complex logistics routed through European intermediaries.
This new model allows for direct purchase from African producers. The aggregation, stringent quality control, and preparation of the coffee are now handled in Morocco before rapid export via Tangiers Med. This approach is designed to significantly reduce costs and transit delays while retaining greater added value on the African continent.
Sanaa Ben Abdelkhaleq, CEO of the African Coffee Hub, explained the center’s core objective: “Our goal is to enable African coffee to reach the entire world without intermediaries, while guaranteeing its quality, traceability, and fair compensation for producers. The port of Tangiers Med represents the ideal location to lead this revolution.”
African coffee is essential to global espresso production, supplying sought-after varieties that shape the flavor profiles used by top international roasters. Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, remains the continent’s largest producer, yielding between 470,000 and 500,000 tonnes annually—representing approximately 3% to 4% of global production and supporting over 15 million farmers. Uganda follows closely behind with nearly 400,000 tonnes, predominantly of the Robusta variety. Other major exporters include Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, and Kenya.
Although Africa produces more than 10% of the world’s coffee, it captures only a fraction of the global market value due to a lack of local processing and direct marketing capacity.
The growing global demand for specialty coffees—including Ethiopian Arabica, Tanzanian Peaberry, and Kenyan AA—combined with the expansion of intra-African trade under the AfCFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area), positions the continent for accelerated growth. Success, however, hinges on countries increasing their roasting capacity, modernizing their logistics, and strengthening their price risk management systems, all of which the new Tangiers hub aims to facilitate.
MK/ak/ac/fss/abj/APA