Bolt is Launching its Food Delivery Service, Bolt Food, in Lagos

Have you ever used an Uber/Bolt to pick up or make a delivery? Saved me from many “shit, I left my charger at home” moments. In some messages we stumbled on, it appears Bolt is formalising this for local restaurant industry. To be fair, we didn’t really stumble on it like that but that’s beside the point.

The service, called “Bolt Food”, will let you order from listed restaurants in Lagos. We’re not quite sure if it’s going to be a standalone app or it will be baked into the existing Bolt app. 

With the lockdown, we’ve seen lots of restaurants pivot to delivery. Jumia Food and OyaNow have done an impressive job listing restaurants that would have never offered a delivery service. Bolt, in fact, recently opened its platform to local businesses so I guess Bolt Food was a no brainer at this point. Bolt Food isn’t particularly new. The service launched about eight months ago and has been rolling it out slowly.

It’s a bit surprising that Uber didn’t jump in on this first. UberEats has been live in South Africa for a couple of years so I’ve been expecting them to launch in Lagos pretty soon. 

Oh well. You snooze, you lose. I need Bolt Food to get this thing popping because OyaNow has been annoying the hell out of me lately and as a beggar with no choice, I can’t complain too much. Jokes aside, it’s nice to see Bolt betting big on the local market (read: people like Nosa) unlike its rival. 

UPDATE: According to one of the restaurants Bolt reached out to, Bolt is looking for a 30% cut on sales. Ehhhh, idk about that, lads.