From Trader To Processor

Hey, Hannatu here 👋

There's an agribusiness that's on many Nigerian breakfast tables every morning. 

They make custard and milk. 

And this year, their work attracted €70 million ($81 million) from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. 

This follows a $60 million investment in 2024 from FMO, Proparco, and DEG, development finance institutions from the Netherlands, France, and Germany, respectively.

That company is called  Valency International, and you've probably never heard of them.

That's the thing about agribusinesses.

They just build. Quietly, unglamorously, and very profitably.

Three European institutions are moving together on one agribusiness company. That doesn't happen by accident.

Valency started as a commodity trader in 2007. They were just buying cashews from Nigerian farmers, shipping them raw to India, and collecting the margin. 

It worked. 

Until they started paying attention to what happened after the ship left.

Raw cashew nuts from African farms sell for around $500-$1000 per tonne at the farm gate. 

By the time they're deshelled, the export price climbs to $6,000 - 9,000 per tonne. 

That's roughly six times the value, created entirely by processing. And despite 85% of raw cashews globally being exported from Africa, the processing margin was staying outside the continent. 

In 2015, Valency made a decision that most traders never make. 

Instead of continuing to export raw cashews, the company decided to process the cashews itself. In Nigeria.

It was a quiet recognition that the money wasn't in moving things. The money was in transforming them.

Processing cashews in Nigeria meant building infrastructure from scratch. That's not exciting work. But it's the work that actually changes things.

Here's what Valency built over the next decade:

None of this is glamorous. But it is what a functioning agricultural supply chain actually looks like.

Infrastructure without supply is just expensive equipment sitting idle. 

Valency solved that through their Farmer Relationship Management programme.

It works simply. Farmers who join know before planting that Valency will buy their harvest at a set price. 

They know the quality standards. They know where the crop is going.

Valency provides inputs on credit, training on quality, and a guaranteed purchase at the end. Farmers get price certainty and market access. Valency gets a reliable supply of predictable quality. Export buyers get traceability.

It's not revolutionary. It's just functional, which in Nigerian agriculture is rarer than it should be.

Here's the contrast that doesn't get talked about enough.

Valency is one of Nigeria's largest non-oil exporters. 

They operate across 22 countries. They employ over 1,700 people. Their operations span cashews, cocoa, soybeans, pulses, fertilisers, and agrochemicals.

And most Nigerians have never heard of them.

But they might recognise the Champion brand, custard, milk powder, and chocolate milk powder, all made from local ingredients, all quietly sitting on Nigerian breakfast tables.

The same company shipping cashew kernels to global buyers is also the company whose custard your mother probably kept in the kitchen. 

That's not a coincidence. It's a deliberate strategy to capture value at every point in the chain, from the farm to the factory to the family table.

And the table is large. 

Nigeria's food and drink market was valued at $54.1 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $112 billion by 2035. 

Valency is building inside one of the fastest-growing consumer markets on the continent.

When you build across the entire chain, and the market you're building in is this large, eventually the money follows.

This year's EBRD investment isn't a bet on potential. It's capital moving into proven operations.

Here's what the money funds for Valency:

The regional play is deliberate. Single-country suppliers are vulnerable to bad weather and policy shocks. Regional suppliers with multiple sourcing options are reliable. Reliability is what global buyers pay a premium for.

The three-DFI syndicate from 2024, three separate institutions moving together, already signalled that institutional money was paying attention. 

The EBRD investment confirms it.

Nigeria's non-oil exports crossed $4.5 billion in 2024, driven by cocoa, sesame, urea, and cashew. 

By 2025, that figure reached $6.1 billion. Progress, yes. But oil still contributed 65% of total export earnings as of Q3 2024. The diversification story is still very fragile.

Every tonne of processed cashew kernel Valency exports is a direct contribution to closing that gap. 

And according to NEPC estimates, every $1 billion increase in non-oil exports creates between 40,000 and 70,000 jobs across farming, processing, logistics, and haulage. 

The multiplier effect of what agribusinesses are building runs well beyond their own balance sheet.

The lesson for everyone watching isn't complicated. 

Build the boring infrastructure. Demonstrate profitability. Then let the institutions come to you.

What agribusinesses in your region are doing well and deserve a spotlight?

→ Let me know here.

Cheers,