It takes courage to move from being a soil scientist to tech. Omolara studied soil science at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. But she has decided to leverage technology to make a difference in the country’s food business.
She is the chief executive and founder of Pocketfood.io – a lunch subscription start-up changing the narrative in Nigeria’s food delivery industry.
Her inspiration came directly from her personal story and the desire to change it for others. “Pocketfood was inspired by my struggles with finding healthy and satisfactory lunch options while working in a busy office environment,” she says.
“I realise that many of my colleagues faced similar challenges, and that’s when I came up with the idea for a lunch subscription platform that would provide a variety of fresh and delicious meals to busy professionals and office staffs,” she discloses.
The founder tells Start-Up-Digest that her business has grown steadily since starting operations in August 2022. According to her, adhering to global standards in its operations has helped the business get repeated patronage and high referrals from previous customers.
“We’ve seen great traction so far. We have an average of 50 users a month and deliver over 4,000 meals.”
Responding to a question on what the business is doing differently, she says Pocketfood focuses mainly on lunch and specifically caters to the needs of busy professionals and employees.
The young entrepreneur adds that meals from Pocketfood are carefully curated and prepared to meet a wide range of dietary needs and preferences, including options for vegetarian, gluten-free, diabetics, and other dietary restrictions while noting that its food is prepared in-house under standard conditions with fresh produce to provide quality meals for customers.
Omolara explains that Pocketfood has a kitchen arm of its business that receives orders. She says the response from its users on the lunch platform has been overwhelmingly positive.
“Our users love the convenience and variety of our meal options, and many have shared that they no longer have to worry about what they will eat for lunch,” she states.
“They appreciate the fact that our meals are fresh and delicious and that we make it easy for them to customize their meal plans based on their dietary needs,” she adds.
On the business expansion plans, Omolara notes that Pocketfood plans to be a leading player in Nigeria’s food delivery industry in the long run.
“Our goal is to become the go-to solution for busy professionals who are looking for healthy, convenient, and delicious lunch options,” she explains.
On its short-term goal, she says the business aims to constantly improve its offering and provide a top-notch customer experience while leveraging tech and data to better understand their needs.
“Additionally, we plan to expand our product line and offer additional meal-related services, further simplifying the lunch experience for busy professionals.”
On how the business is surviving the fresh cost of doing business crisis in the country, she says the naira scarcity impact on the business has been minimal owing to its cashless adoption since inception.
On fuel scarcity, she says the business has adjusted as necessary with its suppliers and partners, noting that Pocketfood is working on a new process to reduce its logistics workload.
“A peer-to-peer logistic strategy is looking interesting to us but we are still on the round table. Hopefully, we would launch this new feature by the end of this first quarter,” she notes.
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On challenges facing the business, the young entrepreneur says logistics remains the biggest challenge limiting the business.
“In the beginning, it was very difficult to manage our logistic process but over the months, we were able to build an amazing network of logistic partners that has significantly boosted our operational process.”
According to her, the business is also working on its tech based logistical arm to further streamline its process.
On her advice to other entrepreneurs, she says “it’s cliché and might seem like a buzzword, but don’t give up. Every entrepreneur would pass through their “what am I doing?!” phase and it’s up to you to prove your self-doubt wrong.”
“Imposter syndrome is real, don’t let it get to you. Take out time to appreciate yourself and what you do. Lastly, ride on the wave,” she advises.
