We now save our photographs, watch movies, and even operate our companies in the cloud. And, whether we realize it or not, that’s where we’re ordering our food more and more of the time.
Introducing cloud kitchens, commercial facilities designed exclusively to manufacture meals for delivery. These Cloud Kitchens are also referred to as ghost kitchens, shared kitchens, or virtual kitchens. The delivery-only food businesses that operate within them are referred to as Cloud restaurants.
The food sector is undergoing transformation. High starting costs, onerous regulations, and COVID-19 have all put the restaurant industry and traditional food business models in jeopardy.
Enter the world of cloud kitchens.
A cloud kitchen, sometimes known as a “ghost kitchen” or “virtual kitchen,” is a commercial cooking area that offers food businesses the equipment and services they need to create menu items for delivery and takeaway. Unlike traditional brick-and-mortar facilities, Cloud kitchens enable food enterprises to manufacture and distribute culinary goods with little cost.
According to recent statistics, meal delivery orders grew by more than 150 percent from 2019 to 2020. UBS expects the food delivery industry to grow more than tenfold over the next ten years, from $35 billion per year to $365 billion. As the need for food delivery grows, more restaurant owners and food entrepreneurs are turning to cloud kitchens as an excellent business option.
Who Makes Use of Cloud Kitchens?
From beloved local eateries to name-brand national chains, cloud kitchens are fast becoming the best answer for expanding their business. Here are a few examples of businesses that are using ghost kitchens in their expansion plan.
- Delivery-Friendly Restaurants: Cloud kitchens geared for delivery allow you to meet requests without incurring additional costs or difficulty. Cloud kitchen restaurants source orders and simplify delivery logistics using online food delivery platforms (e.g., Zomato, Swiggy, and UberEats) or their own white-label platform. Customers may then order food via their mobile devices and have it delivered to their house or business.
- Caterers: Do you own a catering business and want a private kitchen as well as lots of cold and dry storage without breaking the bank? Cloud kitchens are an excellent option.
- Meal Prep Businesses: Meal prep businesses frequently require kitchen space for only a few days a week. This is something that virtual kitchens can help you with.
- Packaged Food Companies: Cloud kitchens can provide enough warehouse space and equipment to scale up packaged food producers.
- Food Product Testing: A cloud kitchen is a low-risk, low-capital solution that allows your firm to test new food items and brand concepts in the market.
The Advantages of a Cloud Kitchen
Virtual kitchens (also known as cloud kitchens or ghost kitchens) are an excellent substitute for the typical brick-and-mortar restaurant. Ghost kitchens allow customers to focus on food production and product promotion while reducing administrative and logistical burdens that typically plague food enterprises.
Here are a few more of the hundreds of reasons why you should hire a virtual kitchen for your company:
Startup Costs Are Reasonably Low
Cloud virtual kitchens help food firms save money. Leasing a commercial kitchen from a ghost kitchen supplier lowers beginning costs because food enterprises no longer have to invest in building inspections, costly building construction, zoning compliance, and so on. Cloud kitchens can allow food enterprises to get up and running in a matter of days or weeks, rather than the months or years necessary for typical leases or construction financing.
Reduced Overhead
Traditional restaurant operators have battled to stay viable owing to hefty property taxes, costly employee wages, and bothersome upkeep charges. Cloud kitchens take care of these costly and time-consuming administrative tasks. Restaurants in cloud kitchens frequently employ one to two cooks and share shared expenses with other tenants.
Also Read, Kitchen gardens – 10 steps for beginning and growing your garden
Additional Convenience
Consider running a food business and being able to concentrate only on your client and food product. This is made feasible by ghost kitchens! The following administrative duties are frequently handled by ghost kitchen suppliers so that you do not have to:
- Health inspections
- Equipment repairs
- Janitorial services
- Security monitoring
- Property taxes
- Utility Bills
Improved Delivery Experience
Do you have a physical restaurant that is crucial to your brand? Cloud kitchens enable you to grow your brand by simplifying delivery from a single location and expanding income sources. Cloud kitchens enable your physical restaurants to meet increased demand without overburdening kitchen personnel with online meal delivery requests.
Customer Satisfaction
Cloud kitchens enable you to meet the needs of your customers. As customers seek speedy meal alternatives at a reasonable price, the popularity of online food delivery has risen. Cloud kitchens help meet the rising demand for online meal delivery by improving the delivery experience through better logistics, reduced prices, and technology advancements.
Expanded Reach
Cloud kitchens enable your company to broaden its focus on meal delivery and reach a broader audience. Delivery-optimized restaurants promote their services via delivery apps and social media rather than through more limited marketing methods. Cloud kitchens can help your business grow by strengthening new marketing channels and increasing visibility.
Traditional Kitchens vs. Cloud Kitchens
Cloud kitchens take the conventional restaurant concept and enhance it with contemporary convenience and cost reductions. The following are some major distinctions between regular restaurants and cloud kitchens:
Traditional Restaurants need greater investment and administrative burden.
Traditional restaurants frequently need a dining space, a host stand, a bar, a waiting area, and toilets for both staff and customers. More room entails more costs and more maintenance. Cloud kitchens provide customers with private commercial cooking facilities while sharing the costs of public components (such as restrooms and corridors). There is no need for as many sections as a typical restaurant. Instead, space may be used to create useful areas for your culinary crew.
Traditional Kitchens Require More Staff
Hosts, waiters, cooks, bartenders, maintenance staff, and restaurant management are all required in traditional restaurants. In a ghost kitchen, all required is personnel to prepare the meals and management to oversee the operation. You will not have in-person clients to take care of unless you provide order pickup. The rental facility will provide maintenance workers for you.
Startup costs for cloud kitchens are lower.
Opening a typical restaurant necessitates a substantial investment in personnel, cooking equipment, furnishings, and utilities, in addition to exorbitant lease rates or hefty mortgages. Flat-fee pricing for administrative functions such as cleaning costs, garbage collection, and cooking equipment is common in cloud kitchens.
Profit margins are higher in cloud kitchens.
Profit margin is the amount a firm receives after deducting expenditures such as rent, employee pay, monthly utilities, and general upkeep. Because traditional restaurants have so many additional administrative expenditures and starting fees, their profit margins are generally lower than those of cloud kitchen restaurants.
