Chowdeck delivers ₦1.5 billion worth of groceries in June as the category now makes up 11% of business

Chowdeck has delivered more than ₦1.5 billion worth of groceries in a single month. This marks a new milestone for the Nigerian food delivery startup as it expands beyond restaurant meals into quick commerce.

The company’s co-founder and CEO, Femi Aluko, disclosed the figure in a post on X, saying the grocery business, which began as what he described as a “small bet,” now contributes 11% of Chowdeck’s overall business and continues to grow.

“I am excited to share that last month, we crossed ₦1.5 billion worth of groceries delivered on Chowdeck in a single month,” Aluko wrote.

He acknowledged that expanding into grocery delivery has brought operational challenges, including stock availability and fulfilment timing.

“It hasn’t been perfect. Quick commerce is a different beast from food, and it has stretched our operations in new ways, from out-of-stock items to fulfilment timing. But we are fixing things quickly and getting sharper every week,” he said.

The milestone reflects Chowdeck’s growing push into quick commerce, a segment focused on delivering groceries and everyday essentials within short timeframes. Unlike food delivery, grocery operations require inventory management, faster replenishment cycles and more complex fulfilment processes.

The company’s venture into grocery delivery is not a surprise. When it raised $9 million in a Series A round in August 2025, led by Novastar Ventures and Y Combinator, expanding its grocery footprint was explicitly listed as one of the core uses of the funding.

Read also: Chowdeck has now surpassed 2 million users, a year after it reached 1 million users

The plan included building out a network of dark stores, small, strategically located warehouses that carry inventory specifically for fast fulfilment, with no walk-in customers, with 40 targeted by the end of 2025 and 500 by the end of 2026.

₦1.5 billion in a single month suggests that infrastructure is beginning to deliver.

Inside the Chowdeck numbers and what it means

₦1.5 billion in groceries in a single month, from a company that primarily built its name on restaurant delivery, is a meaningful signal. It means Chowdeck is no longer just the app Nigerians open when they do not want to cook; it is increasingly where they go when they need the things that would otherwise require a trip to the supermarket.

The shift matters because groceries and food delivery serve different purposes for the customer, but the same purpose for the platform: they increase how often someone opens the app and how much they spend each time.

A customer who orders lunch three times a week and also uses the same app to buy tomatoes, eggs, and cooking oil on Saturday morning is a fundamentally more valuable customer than one who only orders food. That is the logic behind quick commerce, the industry term for ultra-fast grocery and essentials delivery, and it is why Chowdeck bet on it.

Chowdeck has now crossed 2 million registered users, a milestone Aluko announced months ago, exactly a year after it hit 1 million. It has also crossed 1 million cumulative orders, with daily order volumes that climbed from roughly 30,000 to over 40,000 in the months following that mark.

The platform currently operates in 11 cities across Nigeria and Ghana, supported by a network of more than 20,000 riders.

What distinguishes Chowdeck from the foreign players that have come and gone in Nigeria’s delivery space, such as Jumia Food, Bolt Food, and Glovo, is that it has stayed profitable while expanding, a discipline unusual in a sector notorious for burning cash. It also leaned into local restaurants and food vendors rather than chasing international quick-service chains, which made its supply network stickier and harder for competitors to replicate.

The grocery milestone adds a new layer to that story. Groceries globally are a lower-margin, operationally harder business than restaurant delivery. Out-of-stock items, perishables, weight and quantity discrepancies, and customer expectations about freshness make it harder to get right consistently.

Aluko acknowledged these challenges directly. But 11% of total business in a category the platform entered relatively recently, at ₦1.5 billion in a single month, suggests the execution is working well enough to keep customers coming back.

Whether that is a product expansion, a new city, a partnership, or something else entirely, Chowdeck has earned the benefit of the doubt on the execution.