ManufacturingToday Africa

17/11/2025

29/10/2025

The West Africa Hardware, Tools & Mechatronics Fair (WAM), held concurrently with Lagos International Trade Fair(LITF) 2025, is the largest mechatronics fair in West Africa. Explore top global brands, cutting-edge technologies, and innovative O2O business opportunities in West Africa’s premier ind...

28/07/2025

26/07/2025

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16/07/2025

MT | Insight: Africa’s Silent Generators

The Real Cost of Nigeria’s Private Power

Nigeria generates about 4,000 MW of electricity officially, yet Nigerian homes and businesses consume an estimated 40,000 MW worth of fuel-powered energy privately. These are your petrol and diesel generators, the hidden grid. This isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a silent crisis.

Over ₦17 trillion ($13 billion) has been spent by private individuals and businesses on backup power in the last 15 years. That’s more than Nigeria’s entire capital budget in some years. It powers hair salons, banks, hospitals, churches, start-ups and street stalls. It powers survival.

But what does it cost?

Health: Nigeria has one of the highest rates of generator-induced carbon monoxide poisoning in the world.

Finance: MSMEs spend 30–45% of their revenue on fuel, driving prices up for everyone.

Jobs: Power cuts kill productivity. A 2023 report estimates that $28 billion in economic output is lost yearly to unreliable electricity.

Meanwhile, mini-grid solar and hybrid innovators are lighting up homes across Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda and impressively Liberia, where agile policy shifts have sparked real per-capita grid gains.

For Nigeria, this represents a clear learning curve and a massive leap opportunity. With its scale and sun-rich geography, Nigeria could still become Africa’s renewable energy titan but the clock is ticking.

So what happened to Nigeria’s promise of 24/7 light by 2020? What did privatization actually privatize?

The answer is layered but one truth is clear: The real national grid runs on private pain.

Do you run on gen 24/7? Have you tried solar? We want to hear your power hustle.

Drop your experience below or tag a business trying to survive Nigeria’s energy jungle.

Follow for more Insight on the Africa's real economy.

07/07/2025

MT | CULTURE: Baskets, Seeds & Sovereignty.

Where Culture Feeds the Continent

Long before the tractors and policy papers, Africa fed herself through a cultural contract of seed, soil and season. In northern Ghana, seed festivals are sacred. In Ethiopia, teff is not just a grain, it is heritage in powder form. Across Igboland, ulo akwukwo nri (traditional food gardens) are curated like spiritual altars.

But make no mistake, this isn’t nostalgia. It's agricultural power. A farmer in Burkina Faso who still plants with the lunar calendar is not backward. She is data-driven by the cosmos.

Culture and agriculture were never separate until modernity told us to industrialize or perish. Today, we’re watching the cultural roots of agriculture regenerate: smart urban farms in Lagos are mixing ancestral compost techniques with hydroponics.

African food systems are not primitive, they’re resilient and in the age of climate shocks, it turns out the old ways knew something we forgot: True food security is grown in memory before it's harvested in money.

At ManufacturingToday Africa, we are spotlighting the operators restoring culture to the core of the continent’s food chain.

The basket is sacred and so is the hand that weaves it.

07/07/2025

MT | INSIGHTS: Africa’s Agri-Logistics Bottleneck.

From Farm to Fork and Where It Breaks

Africa produces food. A lot of it. Yet 40% of it never reaches a market.

The cause? A tangled mess of bottlenecks, roads that become swamps, trucks that idle for days at checkpoints, cold chains that melt before they begin.

In Nigeria, onions rot in transit while fast-food outlets import frozen fries. In Kenya, farmers lose 60% of their tomatoes post-harvest. In Uganda, milk producers beg for pasteurization hubs within reach.

What Africa lacks is not production, it is connection.

But change is in motion. New players are rerouting the map:

• Sabi is digitizing supply networks across West Africa.
• Twiga Foods in Kenya built a tech bridge between small farmers and big city vendors.
• ColdHubs is turning solar-powered cooling into rural infrastructure.

The insight, Logistics isn’t trucks. It’s trust. It’s planning. It’s the difference between harvest and hunger.

If we want to feed 1.4 billion people and still export, we must rethink our Agri-logistics as a strategic manufacturing backbone.

“Don’t just invest in food. Invest in the route it takes to reach a table.”

07/07/2025

Cote d'Ivoire opens a $233 million cocoa factory.

Cote d'Ivoire has opened a $233 million cocoa grinding factory covering 21 hectares, with the aim to process at least 50% of its cocoa locally.

It has an initial processing capacity of 50,000 tons of cocoa annually.

The factory will further produce 210,000 tons of cocoa products in the next two years.

It includes a storage warehouse with a capacity of 160,000 tons, a training center for trade, and an administrative building.

The cocoa grinding factory will process raw cocoa beans into intermediate products used to make chocolate and other goods. These include: cocoa paste, cocoa butter, and cocoa Powder.

Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s largest cocoa producer.

07/07/2025