Chowdeck, the online food delivery service at the request of the Nigeria rationalizes its operation by dismissing 68% of its contractual staff, following the implementation of efficiency improvements in its management processes for riders and restaurants.
According to Tech Point, Chowdeck’s CEO, Femi Aluko, revealed that the company’s operations team extended six times from 20 employees in January 2024 to 120 by January 2025. However, he added that the maintenance of this level of personnel was not durable, given the ambitious objective of growth of the company for 2025.
Consequently, he has since focused on optimizing processes and reducing manual dependencies, which allows him to work more with a leaner team.
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The CEO said,
“While we were growing very quickly last year, we had to hire many contractual people to help manage a lot in operations. In the past two months, we have optimized a large part of these processes which now force us not to need as many people as we needed before our contract employees. ”
Aluko stressed that the layoffs were not due to financial difficulties, but rather as a result of operational improvements which have considerably improved the speed and efficiency of administration. For example, he noted that a team that formerly required 24 employees can now operate with only two, and that average delivery times have gone from 41 minutes to 33 minutes.
In particular, the staff of the contract concerned was informed of the decision at a company meeting, where he was assured of three months of salary and health insurance as compensation. Chowdeck also plans to help as much as possible in the transition to new roles outside the company. However, in all these elements, full -time employees remain unaffected.
Fast growth chowdeck and expansion in new markets
Despite the layoffs, Chowdeck continues its aggressive expansion. The company, which obtained a $ 2.5 million seed round in 2024, crossed the milestone of 10 million delivery on March 3, 2025, with six million amazing deliveries in the past nine months.
Its recent operational optimizations have enabled faster market entry. In January 2025, the company extended to Kaduna and Owerri and should be launched in Ghana next week, starting with the capital Accra.
Chowdeck has already appointed a country director for Ghana and plans to maintain a Lean team, taking advantage of its improved operational efficiency. The CEO of the company stressed that expansion follows an approach to the city by city rather than a large national deployment.
“It is not because we live in Ghana that we will soon launch in Kumasi. We have built an excellent product that struck the product market (PMF) in specific cities, and our goal is to double these success points across Africa ”, The CEO said.
Chowdeck’s ability to combine rapid expansion with operational excellence has positioned it as a dominant force in the food delivery sector in Nigeria. In October 2024, the company exceeded 30 billion Nairas of total deliveries for 2024, highlighting the growing influence of the platform in the Nigeria Food Services industry. The company also boasted of having more than a million registered users, serving more than 3,000 companies across Nigeria.
Since its creation in October 2021, Chowdeck has developed quickly, established itself as a major player on the food delivery market in Nigeria. The platform extended its range to eight large cities in Nigeria, Who includes Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan and Port Harcourt, with a fleet of more than 3,000 runners. Chowdeck runners, according to the company, earn wages comparable to senior officials in Nigeria, highlighting the role of the platform in the supply of job possibilities.
Ahead
While Chowdeck is continuing its aggressive growth strategy, with its recent expansion in Ghana, the company should still reshape the way Africans have access to restaurant meals thanks to technology -oriented convenience.
