A Techpoint Africa investigation has exposed a weak point in Nigeria’s food delivery market: vendor verification.
The investigation, published on May 7, 2026, found that a fake restaurant could be created on both Glovo and Chowdeck using false business details, stolen food images, and mismatched registration information. In both cases, the test store eventually went live and completed a sale.
That finding matters because food delivery platforms do more than move meals. They also mediate trust between restaurants, customers, riders, and payment systems. When a platform allows an unverified or impersonated vendor to trade, the risk is no longer only operational. It becomes a consumer protection problem.
What happened
Techpoint said its investigation was triggered by a December 2025 complaint from Corporate Ewa, a food vendor that alleged several live stores on Glovo were impersonating its business. According to the report, the fake listings used images from the vendor’s official social media pages, even though the business had not registered on Glovo.
To test the onboarding systems, Techpoint created a fake restaurant profile on Glovo and Chowdeck. The test used a false address, a fabricated tax ID, personal banking details, and food photos taken from the Instagram page of the real restaurant being impersonated.
On Glovo, the publication said it was able to proceed with registration after entering a made-up tax ID. Techpoint reported that the ID was not flagged during the process, suggesting that the platform did not appear to cross-check the information against public tax or company registration databases at that stage.
The report also said Glovo later requested business information, including bank details, tax information, CAC documentation, contact details, menu items, and a one-time activation fee of ₦20,000. After submission, Techpoint said the fake restaurant received a vendor agreement, a Glovo device for order receipt and tracking, onboarding training, and eventually appeared on the app.
Techpoint said Glovo declined to comment on its onboarding process.
Chowdeck’s restricted-access gap
Chowdeck’s process appeared to detect a mismatch, but the outcome still exposed a risk.
According to Techpoint, Chowdeck rejected the submitted business information because the business name did not match the CAC number provided. But the test store was still allowed to continue operating under a restricted-access arrangement until daily payouts reached ₦100,000.
In its response to Techpoint, Chowdeck said it verifies business information and tax IDs through third-party partners. The company also said it may provide limited access to legitimate small businesses that are still formalising their registration, with tighter controls and full access dependent on completion of verification.
That distinction is important. Chowdeck’s system appears to have some form of document check. But the risk is that a pathway designed to support informal or early-stage food vendors can also be used by bad actors.
Techpoint said it was able to complete onboarding, make the store publicly visible, and fulfil an order through Chowdeck.
Why it matters
Food delivery platforms compete on speed, restaurant variety, convenience, and logistics reliability. But as the category grows, trust becomes part of the infrastructure.
For customers, weak vendor verification can create several risks. A customer may order from a business they believe is legitimate, only to receive food from an unknown source. That raises questions around refunds, food safety, identity fraud, and brand impersonation.
For restaurants, the issue is commercial and reputational. A fake listing can divert orders, misuse brand assets, confuse customers, and damage a restaurant’s name if the food or service is poor.
For platforms, the risk is bigger than one bad listing. If users begin to doubt whether listed vendors are real, the marketplace loses credibility. That can increase customer support costs, regulatory attention, and merchant distrust.
The lesson is simple: food delivery platforms cannot treat vendor onboarding as a growth funnel alone. It is also a risk-control system.
The regulation problem
The Techpoint report also points to a regulatory gap.
Nigeria’s fintech sector has stricter Know Your Customer and Know Your Business expectations because financial services are heavily regulated. Food delivery platforms operate in a looser environment. Techpoint noted that no Nigerian law specifically governs the food delivery sector, and no single regulator has a clear mandate over digital food delivery platforms.
This creates a grey area. The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has broad consumer protection authority. NAFDAC regulates food-handling establishments. But platform-level responsibility for verifying food vendors remains less clearly defined.
That gap may not hold for long. As more consumer activity moves through digital marketplaces, regulators will likely pay closer attention to how platforms verify vendors, protect consumers, and respond to impersonation.
The platform trade-off
There is a real business tension here.
Many African consumer platforms grow by reducing friction. They want more vendors, faster onboarding, broader coverage, and higher order volume. Strict verification can slow that process, especially in markets where many small businesses are informal or only partly registered.
But loose onboarding creates its own cost. It can allow fake vendors to enter the system, increase fraud risk, and weaken customer trust.
The better path is not necessarily to block every small vendor without perfect documentation. That could shut out legitimate informal businesses. The better path is layered verification.
Platforms can start with basic identity checks, business-name matching, tax or CAC verification where available, bank-account consistency checks, address confirmation, and human review for high-risk cases. They can also restrict unverified vendors more tightly until documents are completed.
The point is not to make onboarding impossible. It is to make impersonation harder.
What TechCocoon is watching
This story should matter to founders and operators beyond food delivery.
Every marketplace has a trust layer. Ride-hailing platforms verify drivers. Fintechs verify users and merchants. E-commerce platforms manage seller quality. Logistics platforms verify partners. Food delivery platforms are not exempt simply because the product is a meal.
The next stage of African consumer tech will not be judged only by how quickly platforms can scale. It will also be judged by how well they manage the messy operational details that come with scale.
For Glovo and Chowdeck, the immediate issue is vendor verification. For the wider market, the message is broader: trust is not a feature that can be patched later. It is part of the product.
