Chowdeck, Nigeria’s on-demand online food delivery service is streamlining its operation by laying off 68% of its contract staff, following the implementation of efficiency improvements in its rider and restaurant management processes.
According to Tech Point, Chowdeck CEO Femi Aluko disclosed that the company’s operations team expanded sixfold from 20 employees in January 2024 to 120 by January 2025. However, he added that maintaining this level of staffing was unsustainable, given the company’s ambitious fivefold growth target for 2025.
Hence, it has since focused on optimizing processes and reducing manual dependencies, allowing it to operate more with a leaner team.
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The CEO said,
“As we were growing very fast last year, we had to hire a lot of contract people to help handle a lot of things in operations. In the last two months, we’ve optimized a lot of those processes that now require us to not need as many people as we needed before for our contract employees”.
Aluko emphasized that the layoffs were not due to financial struggles but rather a result of operational improvements that have significantly enhanced delivery speed and efficiency. For instance, he noted that a team that once required 24 employees can now function with just two, and average delivery times have dropped from 41 minutes to 33 minutes.
Notably, the affected contract staff were informed of the decision at a company meeting, where they were assured of three months’ salary and health insurance as severance. Chowdeck also plans to assist as many as possible in transitioning to new roles outside the company. However, in all of these, full-time employees remain unaffected.
Chowdeck Rapid Growth And Expansion Into New Markets
Despite the layoffs, Chowdeck continues its aggressive expansion. The company, which secured a $2.5 million seed round in 2024, hit the 10 million delivery milestone on March 3, 2025, with a staggering six million deliveries occurring in just the last nine months.
Its recent operational optimizations have enabled faster market entry. In January 2025, the company expanded to Kaduna and Owerri and is set to launch in Ghana next week, starting with the capital Accra.
Chowdeck has already appointed a country manager for Ghana and plans to maintain a lean team, leveraging its improved operational efficiency. The company’s CEO emphasized that the expansion follows a city-by-city approach rather than a broad national rollout.
“Just because we’re live in Ghana doesn’t mean we’ll launch in Kumasi soon. We’ve built a great product that has hit Product-Market Fit (PMF) in specific cities, and our goal is to double down on those 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 Nigeria’s food delivery sector. In October 2024, the company surpassed N30 billion in total deliveries for 2024, highlighting the platform’s growing influence in Nigeria’s food service industry. The company also boasted of having over one million registered users, serving over 3,000 businesses across Nigeria.
Since its inception in October 2021, Chowdeck has grown rapidly, establishing itself as a major player in Nigeria’s food delivery market. The platform has expanded its reach to eight major cities in Nigeria, which includes Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, and Port Harcourt, with a fleet of over 3,000 riders. Chowdeck’s riders, according to the company, earn comparable salaries to senior civil servants in Nigeria, highlighting the platform’s role in providing employment opportunities.
Looking Ahead
As Chowdeck continues its aggressive growth strategy, with its recent expansion to Ghana, the company is set to further reshape how Africans access restaurant meals through technology-driven convenience.