Nigerian food delivery startup Chowdeck has laid off 86 contract staff following recent operational optimisations aimed at improving efficiency and reducing manual processes.
According to CEO Femi Aluko, the company’s operations team expanded rapidly over the past year — growing sixfold from 20 employees in January 2024 to 120 by January 2025. However, Aluko explained that this growth was unsustainable given Chowdeck’s 2025 target of expanding its business fivefold.
“As we were growing very fast last year, we had to hire a lot of contract people to handle operations,” Aluko said. “Over the past two months, we’ve optimised many of these processes, so we no longer need as many contract staff.”
He stressed that the layoffs were not due to financial trouble, but rather a shift toward efficiency.
The recent streamlining efforts have produced noticeable results. Tasks that once required 24 staff members can now be managed by just two, while average delivery times have dropped from 41 minutes to 33 minutes.
The affected staff were informed at a meeting on Thursday morning. Aluko announced that each would receive a severance package, including three months’ salary and health insurance, and that Chowdeck would support their transition into new roles outside the company. He confirmed that no full-time employees were impacted.
Despite the layoffs, Chowdeck continues its aggressive expansion. The startup, which raised a $2.5 million seed round in 2024, recently crossed the 10 million delivery milestone — with six million of those orders coming in the last nine months.
In January, Chowdeck launched in Kaduna and Owerri, and a beta launch in Ghana is scheduled for next week. The company has appointed a Country Manager for Ghana but will initially limit operations to Accra, aligning with its city-by-city expansion strategy.
Chowdeck’s operational improvements have also accelerated its growth timeline — reducing city launch times from three months to just one week, with Owerri’s launch reportedly completed in a single weekend.
