CAFE26 Cambodia: A B2B Opportunity for Coffee Exporters

Cambodia's largest agriculture trade event, CAFE26, is scheduled for 23 to 25 October 2026 at the Diamond Island Convention and Exhibition Center in Phnom Penh, organized by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization and other development partners. For a Cambodian coffee exporter, this event is easy to overlook, since it is not a specialty coffee show and does not primarily target consumer-facing coffee brands. That is exactly why it deserves deliberate attention rather than default dismissal.

What CAFE26 actually is

Organizers describe CAFE26 as building on a successful inaugural 2025 edition, scaling up to become Cambodia's largest platform for agribusiness trade, high-level policy dialogue and value-chain innovation, under the theme "Investing in Cambodia's Agrifood: Partnerships, Value Addition and Innovation." The event combines a two-day agriculture investment forum, a three-day exhibition and a one-day youth innovation forum, with organizers projecting more than 400 exhibitor booths and more than 25,000 visitors, including thousands of farmers.

Why it is not a specialty coffee show, and why that is fine

CAFE26's audience spans the full agricultural sector: crops, livestock, aquaculture, agri-technology and food processing, with coffee representing one part of a much larger picture rather than the event's central focus. A coffee brand expecting consumer-facing engagement or specialty coffee industry networking, of the kind found at a dedicated coffee trade show, will be disappointed. But a coffee exporter looking for government relationships, investment conversations, agricultural technology partners or supply chain infrastructure connections is looking in exactly the right place, since these are the event's actual strengths.

The specific opportunities worth targeting

Government and policy relationships are one clear opportunity, since the event's forum component is explicitly designed for policy dialogue between government and the private sector, giving a coffee exporter access to officials and policy discussions that a specialty coffee show would not offer. Investment matchmaking is another, since the event's stated purpose includes business pitching and investment matching, relevant for an origin brand seeking capital to expand processing capacity, warehousing or export infrastructure. Agricultural technology exposure is a third, since exhibitors are expected to showcase climate-smart solutions and digital agricultural technologies that could improve processing, quality control or traceability record-keeping, all relevant to the documentation-heavy work described elsewhere in building export readiness.

What a coffee exporter should not expect

CAFE26 is unlikely to deliver direct retail or specialty roaster connections, since its audience and programming are not built around that segment. A coffee brand attending primarily to find hotel accounts, café partnerships or specialty importers is likely to be disappointed and would be better served by a dedicated coffee trade event, such as an international coffee summit or show, for that specific purpose.

Preparing differently for this kind of event

Because CAFE26's audience differs so much from a coffee-specific trade show, preparation should differ too. Materials should speak the language of investment and policy as much as the language of coffee quality: production volumes, export potential, employment impact, and how the business fits into Cambodia's broader agricultural development goals, alongside the more familiar origin and quality story used at coffee-specific events. A pitch built entirely around tasting notes and cupping scores will land less effectively here than one that also addresses scale, investment needs and supply chain development, and it is worth drafting this second version of the pitch well before the event rather than improvising it on the exhibition floor.

The government relationship dimension

Cambodian coffee exporters, particularly smaller and younger ones, often lack established relationships with the government bodies that shape agricultural policy, export facilitation and investment promotion. An event explicitly designed to bring these bodies together with private businesses is a lower-cost, lower-risk way to begin building those relationships than seeking meetings independently, since the event itself creates a natural, expected context for these conversations to happen.

Connecting this event to a broader origin strategy

CAFE26 fits into an origin brand's broader business development picture as a domestic, policy- and investment-facing counterpart to international, trade-facing events such as a coffee summit abroad. The two serve different purposes: one builds domestic relationships, infrastructure access and policy standing; the other builds international buyer and distribution relationships. A well-rounded business development calendar for an ambitious Cambodian coffee brand can reasonably include both kinds of event, provided each is approached with expectations matched to what it actually offers rather than treated as interchangeable.

A modest way to start

For a coffee brand uncertain how much to invest in this kind of event, a reasonable first step is attending as a visitor or forum participant rather than committing to a full exhibition booth, using the visit to map out which government bodies, investment programs and technology providers are present and worth a follow-up conversation, before deciding whether a larger presence at a future edition is warranted.

Learning from CAFE25

The inaugural 2025 edition of this event drew large crowds to the same Phnom Penh venue and was reported to generate real matchmaking activity and follow-up investment conversations, according to coverage at the time, lending some real, independently reported credibility to the organizers' stated expectations for the larger, expanded 2026 edition of the event. A coffee exporter can reasonably treat the first edition's reported success as a signal that this platform is gaining genuine traction with government and investment audiences, worth watching and planning around even for a business whose core activity, specialty coffee, sits at the edge rather than the center of the event's primary focus.

Bottom line

CAFE26 is not a coffee industry event in the way a specialty coffee summit is, but its scale, government backing and focus on investment, technology and value-chain partnerships make it a genuine, underused opportunity for a Cambodian coffee exporter seeking exactly those kinds of relationships. Approaching it with the right expectations, and a pitch adapted for a policy and investment audience rather than a coffee-industry one, is what determines whether the event delivers real value.