Chowdeck is letting go of 86 contract staff after optimising its rider and restaurant operations. Over the last year, Chowdeck CEO Femi Aluko says the startup has seen its operations team grow sixfold from 20 in January 2024 to 120 in January 2025.
However, he notes that the growth in staff strength was unsustainable in light of the startup’s growth projections for 2025, when it aims to grow by at least five times. Consequently, Chowdeck has worked on optimising operations and reducing dependence on manual processes.
“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," Aluko says. "In the last two months, we've optimised a lot of those processes that now require us to not need as many people as we needed before for our contract employees."
"We are not doing it because we are in trouble,” he adds.
Those optimisations, which were largely focused on improving delivery times, have been successful, Aluko says. A team that used to be staffed by 24 people can now be run efficiently by two. Additionally, average delivery times have reduced from 41 minutes before the optimisation to 33 minutes.
The affected employees were informed by Aluko at a meeting this morning. Each will receive three months of salary and health insurance as a severance package, while the company says it will help as many as possible transition to roles outside Chowdeck. According to Aluko, no full-time employees are affected by the development.
Meanwhile, the startup, which raised a seed round of $2.5 million in 2024, has been on a growth tear, hitting the 10 million delivery mark on Monday, March 3, 2025, with 60% of that total (six million) occurring in just the last nine months, Aluko told Techpoint Africa.
Chowdeck's recent operational improvements have allowed it to accelerate its expansion. In January 2025, the company began operations in Kaduna and Owerri and is preparing for a beta launch in Ghana next week. The company has already appointed a country manager for Ghana and plans to keep a lean team in the country, leveraging its improved operational efficiency.
Although it is launching operations in Ghana, its services will initially only be available in the capital, Accra, in line with its strategy of launching in viable cities.
Written by Omoruyi Edoigiawerie, a seasoned startup attorney with over a decade of experience. Learn more.
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“Even though we're launching in Ghana, what the team knows right now is that we're launching in Accra. The fact that we’re live in Ghana doesn't mean that I'm going to launch in Kumasi soon. We think of our expansion from a city perspective. We've realised that we've built a very beautiful product that's hit PMF in specific cities and want to double down on expanding to those cities across Africa.”
Those operational optimisations have not only been vital for improving delivery times; they have also improved how quickly it can launch in new cities. Where Chowdeck previously needed three months to launch in a new city, it can now do so in a week. Its Owerri launch reportedly took place over a weekend.
