Bolt Food officially launches in Kenya

The ride-hailing company, Bolt has launched Bolt Food, its food delivery service in Nairobi, Kenya. Kenya is now the third country in Africa where Bolt food is currently available, after South Africa and Ghana. There are also plans in the works to launch Bolt Food in Nigeria, although no specific timeline has been disclosed.

The launch of Bolt Food in Kenya is not a big surprise given that the company spoke about its plan to focus on food delivery in emerging markets.

At present, Bolt offers food delivery services in 16 countries and 33 cities across the world but will grow that number this year after raising money in 2020 and 2021 for expansion purposes.

In Kenya, Bolt will compete with global rivals, Uber Eats and Jumia’s Jumia Food, two companies that are also expanding through the region. There’s also the Spanish delivery company, Glovo which also launched in Nigeria recently.

The competition is fierce and the timing of Bolt Food’s launch coincides with the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Kenya. The third wave has seen the number of fatalities jump up to 2,092.