Emma Okonji
The inaugural New Pour Report 2026, which is based on 10 trends and over 15 data sources, has identified why capital is shifting toward Southern and sub-Saharan Africa on the back of demographics such as urbanisation and connectivity.
The report, which was launched at The New Pour Summit 2026, convened by Drinkabl Africa, brought together, beverage leaders, founders, and investors, to build actionable frameworks to scale African drinks from concept to global markets.
Launched in Nairobi, Kenya, the summit seeked to turn Africa’s demographic dividend into commercial dominance and to unfold Africa’s $1 billion growth opportunity.
Co-founder, Drinkabl Africa, and convener of The New Pour Summit, Tosin Balogun, said: “The inaugural New Pour Report 2026 is ten trends shaping the flow of capital into the global south, in which Africa is the critical market. This is our intellectual commitment to Africa’s beverage industry. It’s the inaugural report, and we don’t plan on stopping.”
Key trends of the report include situational consumption, premiumisation of local drinks, wellness, cross-border scalability, and ‘return on culture’.
With one in five youths worldwide set to be African within 15 years, the summit’s call was clear: build with the African consumer at the centre.
From AI-driven intelligence to ‘glocal’ brands, the summit convened founders, investors and corporates to unlock capital for Africa’s innovation engine.
“We are moving from ideas to execution, building brands that start in Africa and scale globally. Investment follows clarity, and our goal is to bring absolute clarity to the African beverage ecosystem,” Balogun said.
Founder, Handas Juice, Brian Kiriba, said: “My strategy has always been to be so good that we can’t be ignored. We couldn’t find distribution, so we built our own.”
Facilitator at Building for Africa, David Idagu, said: “Building in Africa requires a certain kind of madness to navigate. The word that resonated across every speaker today was resilience.”