• Super Admin
• 07 Mar, 2026

Uchechukwu Banye-Edeha, co-founder of Happy Belly, a food-tech startup Happy Belly, built a new business model with her partner for Lagos' food sector after leaving one of Nigeria's most talked-about startup environments. Speaking ahead of International Women's Day, Banye-Edeha said the decision to leave a venture-backed food-tech startup in July 2023 alongside her co-founder Jennifer Adebisi came after they realised major operational gaps in Nigeria's food delivery ecosystem. According to her, while many food-tech platforms focus heavily on the customer-facing experience, the operational backbone of food businesses which include kitchen systems, inventory management and vendor coordination remains largely unaddressed. "We had given everything to the previous company, but we had also seen from the inside exactly what the market was missing," Banye-Edeha said. "Food in Lagos has two broken ends. Customers struggle to access consistent and affordable meals, while kitchens operate in chaos without proper systems or infrastructure." Determined to address these gaps, the founders launched Happy Belly in September 2023, building a model that supports both customers and kitchen operators. Building technology for the back-end Unlike many food-tech platforms that prioritise front-end ordering applications, Happy Belly focuses heavily on the operational side of food businesses. The company has developed a proprietary kitchen management system known as 'Culina' alongside a customer-facing ordering app, a logistics platform for delivery riders, and a vendor management network. The startup also operates a dark kitchen model and is working to introduce a WhatsApp ordering channel to accommodate customers who prefer messaging platforms over traditional apps. Banye-Edeha noted that despite being non-technical founders, they were able to design systems tailored to real operational needs because of their prior experience in food-tech operations. "Every piece of infrastructure we built came out of necessity because it didn't exist," she said. "We knew exactly what the technology needed to solve." Women-led team Happy Belly also stands out for its gender composition, with women making up about 90 percent of its workforce. Banye-Edeha said the decision was intentional, reflecting her belief that women bring strong attention to detail and discipline to operational environments. Beyond employment, she said the company focuses on mentorship and professional development, aiming to ensure women on the team leave with stronger confidence, leadership skills and ownership mindset. "I want every woman who comes through Happy Belly to leave with more than a job," she said. "They should leave with a standard of excellence they carry into whatever they do next." Growth ambitions across Africa Currently operating in Lagos, the startup plans to expand into other African cities facing similar infrastructure challenges in the food industry. Banye-Edeha described Happy Belly as more than just a food business, positioning it instead as infrastructure for the continent's rapidly evolving food ecosystem. "We are three years in, the margins are holding, the systems are working, and we are just getting started," she said. She added that the company's journey reflects a broader shift among women entrepreneurs who are increasingly building their own opportunities rather than waiting for them. "There was no handbook for what we built, we wrote it ourselves," Banye-Edeha stated. Source: https://businessday.ng/technology/article/women-entrepreneurs-build-food-tech-infrastructure-to-fix-lagos-broken-food-system/