Trying out new foods is one of life’s simple pleasures. Cuisine immerses you in a culture, exposes you to new tastes and excites the imagination. The challenge is, the more we succeed, the less time we can afford to cook and experiment in our home kitchens. So as Africa’s emerging markets grow, domestic demand for ready-to-consume food products is quickly on the rise, thanks to rapid urbanization and an expanding middle class. As over-sized supermarkets pop up across the continent, however, their shelves are mostly being filled by imported processed foods.

This is a huge opportunity that only requires a small change in thinking. If most agriculture initiatives usually start with the farmers and move up the value chain, then agro-processing solutions must start in the marketplace, identify opportunities, and develop businesses that leverage local agricultural resources. When you consider that, for each job created in agro-processing, an additional 2.8 jobs are created in the wider economy, you realize the benefits go much further than cheaper groceries.