Remember that fiasco of a flash sale by Homemade by Eden Life? What a disaster, right? I had my doubts about their recovery. The flood of negative reviews made me think they had a mountain to climb to regain public trust.

But then came an Twitter/X post that flipped the script. Eden Life did something groundbreaking in Lagos's food scene, beyond the usual "we're sorry" press releases and future meal discounts.

It was something more sincere: A documentary that highlighted the failures of the particular campaign, and humanised the brand without being patronising to its very many disgruntled customers. The documentary, titled “Uncharted: The Day We Never Imagined”, gave a lot of insight into what went wrong and how the brand strove to manage the crisis.

Here are some key takeaways from the documentary:

• Sometimes, failure brings clarity

Firi Adoki, the lead of Food Production at Eden Life, explained how the flash sale that marked Homemade’s launch was essentially a stress test, designed to help the brand evaluate itself operationally. “We figured that there are still a tonne of gaps for us to close. That was my major takeaway. That we are on the journey towards managing the growth that we want to see, towards building amazing systems that would allow us deliver consistently, but that we were not quite there yet,” Adoki shared.

Additionally, Eden Life apparently never envisaged that their new food service would be that high in demand — a gross underestimation of how hungry Lagosians are for super-affordable meals in Tinubu’s economy. CEO, Nadayar Enegesi revealed, “We planned to do only do 400 orders and we ended up getting 2,900 orders. I think we had what we call a high-quality problem and of course, at the same time, there is no way we were operationally ready for the amount of demand that we got, but for us it was great because internally, every team member could see how all of our previously unrealistic goals were super realistic.”

• Dream big, plan even bigger

Ordinarily, when your expectations are surpassed, it’s super exciting. However, when you’re not adequately prepared to deliver, things quickly spiral out of control and a dream come true easily becomes a nightmare.

“It was chaos, a lot of back and forth on the floor, a lot of questions being asked and nobody could give answers to them. We did not know that we can actually do that number, but we did not have the systems, we did not really have the people and we also did not have processes that can help us match that order demand,” explained Joseph Obinna, an Operations Specialist at Eden Life.

Side note: I still think they should have put a cap on that order number, but I understand the vision here.

• When life shows you pepper, do fast and make that peppersoup

When Homemade by Eden Life realised it was impossible to fulfil all the orders in a day, or even two, they resorted to spreading the orders in batches over 6 days using thoroughly analysed data.

“We did that [batching]. Collaboration started, the operations team, product team, executive team, we all came together to put together solutions to automate the different parts of the delivery experience that were broken,” shared Chief of Staff, Jomi Oguntuase. Granted, it took them a couple of days to figure out and communicate this schedule to customers, and I (a particularly annoyed patron) was annoyed, to say the least, that I fell on a latter part of it; nonetheless, it was a commendable solution.

• Own up to your screw-ups

Deji Adeleye, the Lead of Brand & Marketing, prided himself on how the brand was able to quickly take responsibility and turn the situation around. I mean, their apologetic press statements weren’t a magic wand that erased all transgressions — in fact, social media users were happy to pounce on these statements with even more vim — but they still went a long way for some dissatisfied customers. Adeleye also shared how the company quickly disbursed refunds and gave complimentary meals to most customers.

Eden Life’s CEO took it a step further by making personal calls to some customers. “We started this company to make life 10 times better for people. Every time that we did not meet our promise, every time that we disappoint customers who trust in what we have said, we have to take responsibility for it. And sometimes, that means me personally calling these customers to talk to them and to apologise and to also get even more feedback from their own experiences. It’s just a responsibility thing really,” said Enegesi.

• Fail forward

For the company, it wasn’t enough to just go back to the drawing board and identify the gaps. Steps had to be taken to ensure that the mistake would never repeat itself. In line with this, Eden has developed training manuals for in-house and partner riders and tightened their quality assurance systems in other areas. “We want a world where every customer gets their meal in less than one hour. So, what we’re doing is simplifying our processes down to the deepest root, from plating, to picking, to packing, to dispatching to assigning to delivery,” explained Obinna.

• Don’t lose sight of the vision

While the assessments and modifications set Eden Life up to “deliver good delivery experiences”, Chief of Staff, Oguntuase stressed that good is simply not enough for the team; the goal is excellence, and the brand is still working towards achieving that.

“We are striving for excellent delivery experiences. We want food to get into the hands of our customers in record time. We don’t want any hitches or hiccups for our customers. We want the delivery process to be seamless. We want the customer to be involved in every step of the delivery without the annoyance of Nigerian delivery riders, or traffic, or any of those things that cause customers to be unhappy with their delivery,” he said.

“The biggest thing for me is we want to grow with our customers. I want our customers to have front-row seats to our improvement as a company. I want people to see that this company is not stagnant and that we’re not people who abandon the growth mindset. I want people to be teeming with excitement because they know that no matter the number of orders that come in, even if it’s 10,000 orders in 10 minutes or in 15 minutes, Eden will fulfil, and not just fulfil, but you will have a delightful experience.”

• Go again

At the time of writing this, Homemade by Eden Life has gone on to conduct one more bold-move flash sale, which turned out to be wildly successful — and I’m saying this both from my personal experience and general reviews.

The online vendor threw a Homemade Asun Day, with interesting Asun-centred offerings at discounted prices. While I didn’t get my order under 1 hour, the less than 3 hours it took to get to me was certainly much better than the 5-day wait I experienced during my first try. Several other customers applauded Eden for prompt deliveries.

What was even more impressive for me though, was that this time around, true to Oguntuase’s words, I was updated with emails every step of the way. They didn’t leave me in the dark like the last time and I didn’t have to run helter-skelter making calls to find out where my food was.

In a nutshell, Homemade by Eden Life has proven that they’re not just about the words, but as the CEO put it, “We like to put our actions where our mouth is.” More importantly, I, and several others, would never have known about the improvements being made if the company didn’t tell a story that was so authentic, it forced us to give them another try. This is where the power of brand storytelling comes in.

Eden Life pulled us in, showing us that they were more than a business — just a combination of departments and structures tailored towards making a profit — but rather, a group of fallible humans who were striving to do their best. I saw the humans behind the enterprise, not just the brand name, and it made all the difference.

Now, I’m not saying every online food vendor or restaurant needs to make a documentary; the lesson here is that a relatable brand is one that’s more likely to attract forgiveness when things go wrong. With the abundance of options in Lagos these days, it’s easy to discard a business after a singular poor experience, but when you give customers a story they can connect to, they tend to feel a greater sense of loyalty. While transparency isn’t a replacement for quality and consistency, it’s a step in the right direction.

Telling a brand story can look like different things, but I believe it’s worth communicating, and I hope more food businesses take a cue from Eden Life.