Nigeria’s food market is estimated to be worth $233.53 billion in 2025 and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 10.76 percent between 2025 and 2030.
This was disclosed by Paul Marz, Managing Director of fairtrade Messe, organisers of the annual agrofood Nigeria Exhibition and Conference, during his welcome address at the 2026 edition of the event held in Lagos last week.
Marz said the exhibition, organised in partnership with Modion Communications, brought together companies, innovators, and key decision-makers from Nigeria and other parts of the world to explore practical solutions to strengthen value chains, improve productivity, and advance Nigeria’s agrofood sector.
According to him, the event covered key areas such as agriculture, food and beverage technology, food ingredients, packaging, and food hospitality.
He said the 2026 edition, the 11th in the series and themed “Achieving World-Class Food Security in Nigeria,” recorded the highest level of international participation in the conference’s history, with 137 exhibitors from 17 countries across 4 continents.
Marz explained that by creating direct links between Nigerian businesses and international solution providers, AgroFood Nigeria helps to drive technology transfer, improve supply chains, and support better investment decisions in Nigeria and the wider West African market.
He added that Nigeria remained West Africa’s largest importer of food and packaging technology, with imports totalling 265 million euros in 2024. Packaging technology alone accounted for 121 million euros during the same period.
Speaking at the event, the President of the Organisation for Technology Advancement of Cold Chain in West Africa, OTACCWA, Alexander Isong, said Nigeria has yet to fully benefit from cold chain technology, despite its importance to the food industry.
He noted that the main challenge in Nigeria’s food sector is no longer only production at the farm level, but what happens after harvest.
According to him, Nigeria lost between N3.5 trillion and N5 trillion worth of food last year due to post-harvest waste caused by poor storage and weak logistics systems. He said this amounted to between 30 million and 40 million metric tonnes of food.
Isong also said more than 97 percent of Nigeria’s agricultural exports still leave the country without any form of processing, a situation he described as a major weakness for the economy.
Overall, the conference highlighted both the size of Nigeria’s food market and the major gaps that still need to be addressed, especially in storage, logistics, processing, and technology, if the country is to achieve stronger food security and unlock greater value from its agricultural sector.