Ghost Kitchens

In the Corona Crisis, power relationships between delivery services and restaurants are being renegotiated. Everyday dining is fundamentally changing with the growing popularity of food delivery services and so-called “dining in,” or eating food cooked by others at home. And in the wake of an increasingly competitive delivery market, “ghost kitchens” (also called “cloud kitchens”) bring many benefits, from a high degree of flexibility in offering meals to lower costs in choosing a location. And that’s exactly why virtual kitchens have made it easier for smaller operators, as well as the big chains, to enter the delivery service world: production facilities are often conveniently located on the outskirts of cities in industrial parks or containers, and can get by not only with less equipment, but also with lower operating and labor costs. And finally, it is also possible to react much more agilely to changing framework conditions and, for example, to develop new solutions. quite spontaneously be converted to catering services, pop-up kitchens or street food trucks. According to Gastro Marktplatz, profits from the delivery business are expected to grow more than three times as fast as income from on-site restaurant visits by 2023.

A further development of Ghost Kitchens are the now increasingly common Ghost Franchises, i.e. ghost restaurants that have opened additional ghost branches in several locations through collaborations with existing restaurants. Often limited to just a few dishes (e.g. burgers), they operate with a reduced menu from existing restaurant kitchens, creating a win-win situation: The franchisor saves on kitchen and infrastructure maintenance costs, and the franchisee receives a portion of the revenue generated by the ghost franchise’s name, logo, recipes and name recognition. Mr. Beast, the world’s most famous YouTuber with nearly 90 million followers, has partnered with Virtual Dining Concepts to launch MrBeast Burger, a fast-food restaurant chain offering delivery service only.

Best Practices: KITCHEN UNITED, ZUUL, DELIVEROO, MRBEAST BURGER

Photo: Lightspeed, Unsplash