Inaspect ChowCentral: Y Combinator’s latest food delivery bet in Africa

TechCabal caught up with Tosin Onafuye, and Adeyemi Onafuye, Co-founders of ChowCentral Y Combinator’s Summer class of 2023. Here’s how the staff is re-imagining the food restaurant enterprise. 

When Tosin Onafuye began 500Chow—ChowCentral’s subsidiary—as a enjoyable experiment in April 2020, his plan was to ship high quality meals on the most inexpensive price. “We started 500 Chow to sell meals for N500 for people that didn’t have so much money during the covid lockdown,” he tells me on a video chat from ChowCentral’s kitchen in Lekki.  

Onafuye and his staff experimented all through the 2020 lockdown. Afterward, they pivoted into a brand new enterprise mannequin—a food market to ship meals. This try failed; “At the time, we had not gotten so much funding, and we had not gotten so much experience; we had just finished school in 2019, and we wanted to start a business in 2020, so we went to work,” he mentioned. 

After the try failed, the five hundredChow staff went their separate methods. Christopher Obasi, the corporate’s CTO and Yemi Onafuye, the COO, moved to Moniepoint to construct merchandise, whereas Tosin Onafuye joined Vendease (W21), a B2B startup that companies eating places. With the advantage of hindsight, Onafuye says transferring on to various things was a studying curve for the staff. In August 2022, the staff reunited to arrange a central kitchen in Lagos, and ChowCentral was born. 

The concept for ChowCentral was borrowed from Yum, the American multinational quick food company which operates the manufacturers KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill. At current, ChowCentral, owns two manufacturers: 500Chow, and Gregg’s Grill. ChowCentral permits clients to order meals on the app from solely 500Chow, pay with their in-app pockets and observe their orders in real-time—meal costs on the platform vary from N1500-N4000.

ChowCentral: The Facelift

ChowCentral has no plans to incorporate third-party eating places on the app, elevating legitimate questions on selection. On competitor platforms like Chowdeck, customers select from a number of eating places that supply all kinds. ChowCentral’s COO insists that their app all the time has one thing for everybody always of the day. “We are not like Chowdeck or Jumia Food; we are a restaurant. Even though we are virtual and do food delivery, our core business is restaurants.” By specializing in eating places as its core providing, ChowCentral can management high quality. 

ChowCentral acquired an undisclosed pre-seed funding in 2022 led by Ventures Platform, DFS Lab and different angel buyers. The startup is considered one of solely three African startups chosen in this yr’s Y Combinator’s Summer cohort

. “The training and learnings from the impact of the cohort and advice from partners will help us align with the strategies we are trying to achieve,” Onafuye mentioned. ChowCentral joins the checklist of Y Combinator food bets in Africa, having beforehand backed Chowdeck and FoodCourt in their 2022 cohort. 

Bowl of challenges

Recent numbers from the National Bureau of Statistics present that food costs are the most important driver of Nigeria’s inflation figures. Additionally, 90% of Nigeria’s working inhabitants spends greater than half of their earnings on food and associated bills. For a startup promising high quality meals at inexpensive costs to Nigeria’s GenZ and Millennials—who symbolize a bulk of Nigeria’s working inhabitants—ChowCentral has its work reduce out.

The firm CEO, nonetheless, stays unfazed. “We source materials locally; we try to get the lowest possible price at the best possible quality. Unlike the average person, as a restaurant, you can buy larger quantities at a reduced price. It doesn’t mean that the price of things do not also rise, ” he mentioned. “The customers bear more of the eventual cost. There is no way around it; it’s a macroeconomic condition that we have to adjust to. We are working around it. There are no easy answers to these macroeconomic problems”

As with most food delivery startups, Logistics poses a giant problem. Onafuye and his staff use choose riders for orders from the ChowCentral app.  “Also, we use bicycles for our deliveries to lessen the delivery fee,” Onafuye, informed TechCabal. “Logistics have not proven too challenging for us; it’s just the people. Finding reliable people has proven to be the most difficult.”

According to Onafuye, ChowCentral has $80,000 in month-to-month income and at present serves hundreds of shoppers in Lagos Island and Surulere, Lagos mainland. Onafuye says there are plans to increase into different places in the nation. ChowCentral joins an more and more aggressive food delivery panorama with Jumia Food, Bolt Eats, Glovo, and AreaChops; Onafuye asserts that these usually are not rivals. “Chowdeck and the rest will be more focused on the delivery,” he mentioned. “Ours is just to focus on quality and attracting customers to the brand. We are focusing more on the food as our core service” Chow Central’s description on Y Combinator’s web page is constructing restaurant chains for Millennials and Gen Z residing in African cities who need high-quality and wholesome meals,” Onafuye affirms that they are going to stick with this aim until they put African dishes on the map.