Edgar Kitur | How Food Delivery is Powering Inclusion and Enterprise in Kenya This World Food Day
Food connects us, through culture, community, and increasingly through economic opportunity.
World Food Day 2025 is calling for global collaboration in creating a peaceful, sustainable,
prosperous, and food-secure future. We must look not only at what we eat, but how access and
inclusion are built into the food system.
In Kenya, online food delivery is no longer a novelty. According to Statista’s projections, the
Kenyan online food delivery market is expected to approach KES 27.7 billion by 2025, with solid
year-on-year growth. This is driven by smartphone penetration, a growing middle class, and
widespread adoption of mobile payments.
Across our cities, couriers, many of them youth, are finding food delivery a flexible path into
digital work. Some deliver informally on the side; others build full-time livelihoods around it. The
freedom to set one’s schedule, choose zones, and adjust effort makes it an accessible gateway
into digital income for those left out of formal employment.
For food and grocery outlets across Kenya, from local nyama choma spots to cafes in urban
malls, partnering with delivery platforms unlocks new customer reach. Through backend tools
like demand analytics and order routing, these small enterprises go digital without needing to
develop costly infrastructure themselves. Each order ripples outwards, supporting cooks,
delivery riders, packers, and platform staff alike.
To sustain growth, fairness and trust are critical. Platforms in Kenya are rolling out safety
features, rider training, and transparent earnings mechanisms. Restaurants are being offered
clearer commission frameworks, promotional support, and insights to manage demand. On the
consumer side, reliability, hygiene assurance, and clear pricing encourage repeat use and
deeper trust.
Kenya’s broader digital agenda reinforces this momentum. Our mobile money ecosystem is
among the world’s most advanced; fintech and internet access are growing. The digital
transformation is creating a wider stage for platform-based work. This movement is especially
important in a context of youth unemployment and underemployment, food delivery offers a
viable route to income that is dignified and scalable.
World Food Day’s call for “better production, nutrition, environment, lives” resonates deeply in
Kenya’s food delivery narrative. It’s about better lives, couriers securing flexible incomes; better
production, small outlets optimizing with data access; better nutrition, widened access to diverse
foods; and a better environment, more efficient routing, lower food waste, and shared
infrastructure.
On this day, we salute the people behind every delivery, the riders who navigate our roads, the
entrepreneurs behind small food joints, and the consumers whose demand sustains this cycle.
In Kenya’s food economy, the success we seek is not just expansion, it is impact, inclusion, and
Livelihoods.
Edgar Kitur is the General Manager, Bolt Food.
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