African Beverage Brands Pivot To Culture, AI And Glocal Scale At The 2026 New Pour Summit

African beverage leaders, investors, and creatives converged in Nairobi
recently for THE NEW POUR SUMMIT ’26, themed “Liquid Resilience:
Future-Proofing Beverage Brands in Africa’s VUCA Markets.”

Hosted at Golden Tulip Westlands and broadcast across five African
markets, the summit delivered a clear message: the future of beverages
belongs to brands built with the African consumer at the center.

Convened by Tosin Balogun, Co-Founder of Drinkabl Africa, the summit
mapped the journey of African beverage brands from idea to scale.

“The New Pour Summit is designed to bring together the thinkers,
doers, and investors shaping the future of African beverages,” Balogun
said. “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.”

A major highlight was the unveiling of The New Pour Report 2026, the
inaugural industry intelligence report built on ten trends and 15+ data
sources. The report shows capital shifting toward Southern and
Sub-Saharan Africa, driven by demographics, urbanization, and
connectivity.

Key trends identified include situational consumption, authenticity and
heritage, wellness and no/low alcohol, premiumization of local drinks,
real-time data, and sustainable operations.

“Customers are becoming very situational. The same person can choose
value, premium, wellness, or even abstinence on a given day of the
week,” said Franklin Ozekhome, Pop Culture Varsity. “From return on
investment, we must now start looking at return on culture.”

Feyi Olubodun, Founder of Open Squares Africa, introduced the
“Villager Framework” to decode African consumers. “Africans are
modernizing, but they are not westernizing. They are digital in
behaviour, analog in identity and motivation,” he noted. His data
showed that infusing culture into point-of-sale design can lift brand
patronage by up to 65%.

In masterclasses on real-time intelligence, Josiah Kimanzi of Actnable
AI demonstrated how AI tools that use WhatsApp, SMS, and
facial-expression analysis are replacing slow research. “If you’re old
school, you’re using the stairs. AI is a lift,” he said. Panelists
agreed that insight must move at the speed of business and evolve from
descriptive to predictive.

On funding, Kanessa Muluneh, Founder of Nyle, and Brian Kiriba, Founder
of Handas Juice, told founders that scalability, IP ownership, and story
are now as important as financials.

“Story is everything, especially when it comes to beverages. In
Africa, we don’t have enough beverage brands, by far,” Muluneh said.

“Productive naivety is being naive enough to ignore the odds, but wise
enough to learn everything that gets in the way,” Kiriba added.

On the Glocal Case Study: From Manyatta to Millions, EABL’s Effie
Thiongo and Ogilvy’s Maurice ‘Rizz’ Wangalachi broke down the
success of Manyatta Cider. Built on the symbolism of the homestead’s
“timeless flame,” the brand sold over 10 million bottles and
generated double-digit USD million revenue.

“Taste like home is not geography. It’s that sense of familiarity,
warmth, and connection,” Thiongo said. The identity was designed to
“sit anywhere from a local pub to a global club.”

Tosin Balogun warned: “There’s no tired brand. There are only tired
brand managers.” Leaders agreed that resilient brands balance planned
strategy with emergent opportunities and adapt tactics while keeping
long-term objectives fixed.

The New Pour Summit ’26 sets the agenda for 2026: build with culture,
invest in real-time intelligence, and scale African innovation globally.

To access all the presentations and information about the summit,
Balogun encouraged professionals, industry leaders, media, and students
to visit https://newpour.drinkabl.media/recap.html

Sabina Manu, Guinness Breweries Ghana, said, “The brand says this is
who I am, but the consumer now says it louder: no, this is who you
are.”-

“Consistency built the big brands into resilient ones. For younger
brands, you have to be more agile, adapting on a shorter cycle,” she
added

Closing the summit, Hazem Kaddour, VML Morocco, said, “Crossing the
strait is the final plan and won’t change. How you swim through a storm
or against the current is what you adapt.”-