About this Event
You've built a business here. The next market is over there.
Your product moves in Toronto. Your service works in Brampton. And somewhere in the back of your mind is the question you haven't had time to answer: could this sell in Kingston? In Accra? In Port of Spain? In Lagos?
Most Black-owned businesses in Canada never find out. Not because the demand isn't there, cause it is. But because nobody ever walked them through the paperwork, the pricing, the shipping, the buyer, or the capital it takes to get a product across an ocean and get paid for it.
That changes now!
The Afro Caribbean Business Network is opening the ACBN International Training Centre forTrade Preparedness, a training centre built for one purpose: to take Canadian Black-owned businesses from "I've thought about exporting" to "I have a internationally registered business, a buyer, a shipment, and a payment terms agreement."
This open house is your first look inside.
What happens at the open house
Come for lunch. Leave with a decision.
Over two hours we'll walk you through exactly what the two-day Export Readiness Training covers, who it's for, and whether your business is at the right stage to take it. You'll meet the trade advisors delivering the program, see the Export Readiness Assessment we use to benchmark businesses, and hear directly from the ACBN team about the funding pathways that sit behind it.
You'll get:
- A live walkthrough of the two-day Export Readiness curriculum — every session, what you'll produce, and what you'll leave with
- A free Export Readiness snapshot — a short diagnostic that tells you where your business actually stands against the five pillars of export capability
- The real numbers — what it costs to enter a Caribbean or African market, what funding exists (CanExport, Trade Commissioner Service, ACBN's own capital pathway), and what most business owners get wrong about both
- The room — other Black business owners looking at the same markets you are. Distribution partners, freight contacts, and co-exporters have all come out of ACBN rooms before
- Lunch, on us
Who this is for
This open house is built for you if:
- You sell a product — food, beverage, beauty, apparel, agri-processing, packaged goods, manufacturing — and you've been asked "do you ship to…?" more than once
- You sell a service — consulting, tech, creative, professional services, training — and your clients could just as easily be in Nairobi or Bridgetown as in Mississauga
- You're doing $10K–$50K+ in revenue, you're past the idea stage, and you're now asking a growth question instead of a survival question
- You already have diaspora demand — family, community, or online orders coming from the Caribbean or the continent — and no system to serve it
- You're import-side too: sourcing raw materials, ingredients, or finished goods from the Caribbean or Africa and want to do it properly
This is not for you if you're still pre-revenue and looking for a business idea. Come to an ACBN Entrepreneur Drop-In first — we'll get you to Clarity before we get you to customs.
The two-day training this open house previews
Day 1: Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Day 2: Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Both days at Cestar College, Toronto
Two full days. Five working sessions. You don't sit and listen — you build your export plan in the room.
SESSION 1:
Is Your Business Export-Ready?
The Honest Assessment Day 1
Before you pick a market, you have to know if you can serve one. We benchmark your business against the five pillars of export readiness: production capacity, financial runway, compliance and certification, operational systems, and management bandwidth. You'll complete the ACBN Export Readiness Assessment and get your score, your gaps, and a 90-day plan to close them. This session ends the guessing.
SESSION 2
Choosing Your Market: The Caribbean and Africa, Realistically Day 1
CARICOM is not one market. Africa is not one market. This session breaks down where the actual opportunity sits for your sector, market size, purchasing power, competition, diaspora advantage, and ease of entry, across the Caribbean and key African corridors, and how Canada's trade agreements and the AfCFTA change what's possible. You'll leave having narrowed 50+ countries to your top two target markets, with a written rationale you can show a lender.
SESSION 3
Product, Pricing and Compliance: Getting Past the Border Day 1
The session that stops most exporters before they start. HS classification, certificates of origin, labelling and packaging requirements, food safety and health certifications, standards bureaus, and country-specific import rules. Then pricing: Incoterms explained in plain language (EXW, FOB, CIF, and which one is quietly costing you margin), landed-cost modelling, duty and tariff calculation, and how to price so you're still profitable after freight. You'll build a landed-cost model for one product.
SESSION 4
Logistics, Buyers and Getting Paid Day 2
How your goods actually move and how the money actually comes back. Freight forwarders and customs brokers, how to choose one and what to pay. Ocean vs. air, consolidation, and the shipping realities of Caribbean and West African ports. Then the harder half: finding and vetting a distributor, agent, or direct buyer; structuring a distribution agreement that protects you; and de-risking payment through letters of credit, EDC receivables insurance, deposit structures, and FX management. This is the session that keeps you from shipping into a loss.
SESSION 5
Financing the Deal and Building Your Export Plan Day 2
Exporting is a working-capital problem before it's a sales problem. We map the full funding stack available to Canadian Black-owned exporters, CanExport SMEs, the Trade Commissioner Service, Export Development Canada, BDC, and the ACBN Loan Hierarchy that graduates entrepreneurs from our Microloan Fund through to $250K+ commercial capital. You'll finish the day writing your one-page Export Action Plan: target market, first buyer, cost model, capital requirement, and 12-month timeline, reviewed live by our advisors before you walk out.
What you leave with after the two days
- A completed Export Readiness Assessment and gap-closure plan
- Your top two target markets with written justification
- A landed-cost and pricing model for one product or service
- A buyer and distributor outreach list with a vetting checklist
- A one-page Export Action Plan reviewed by a trade advisor
- Post-training advisory access and a direct line into ACBN's capital pathway
Why ACBN
Since 2017, the Afro Caribbean Business Network has helped Black entrepreneurs across Canada get clear, get connected, and get funded. Today we reach 30,000+ entrepreneurs, work with 40+ partner organizations, and deliver a proven loan readiness program.
We run on a simple framework: Clarity → Connection → Capital. International trade is that same framework pointed at a bigger map.
We've watched too many Black-owned Canadian businesses cap out at the size of their neighbourhood while their strongest natural markets — the Caribbean and the continent — sat unserved. The ACBN Training Centre for International Trade Preparedness exists to close that gap.
The details
Open House (this event) 📅 Tuesday, September 15, 2026 🕛 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM 📍 Cestar College — 265 Yorkland Blvd, Suite 400, North York, ON
🎟️ Free — lunch provided, registration required, seats limited
Two-Day Export Readiness Training 📅 Tuesday, September 22 & Tuesday, September 29, 2026 🕘 11am – 3pm both days 📍 Cestar College — 265 Yorkland Blvd, Suite 400, North York, ON
🎟️ $297 for both days — includes all materials, meals, assessment, and post-training advisory access. Payment plans and subsidized seats available — ask at the open house. Registration for the training opens to open house attendees first.
Scholarships available!
Register now
Seats at the open house are limited by room capacity, and the two-day training cohort is capped so every business gets advisor time. If expanding into the Caribbean or Africa has been on your list for more than a year, this is the two hours that moves it.
Event venue & nearby stays
Cestar College of Business, Health and Technology, 265 Yorkland Boulevard, Toronto, Canada
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.