The restaurant industry is a tough nut to crack. The cost of start-ups is quite high, and the margins are very thin. Moreover, the audience is fickle. Regardless of the customer’s capricious nature, the restaurant industry always aims at adopting strategies approaches in the market.
A decade ago, during the social media upsurge, the food truck movement took shape. Restaurants started to launch unique concepts that attracted customers. Well, the rapid growth of the online food industry has led to the Cloud Kitchen trend.
The eating habits are continuously changing, and proactive leaders in the online food business are riding the wave of change to better services. Cloud Kitchen is the answer to many questions.
Understanding the Cloud Kitchen Concept
What is cloud kitchen?
Dark Kitchen, Ghost Kitchen, and Virtual Kitchen are one and the same thing and are nowadays found in most of the restaurants, but they don’t have dine-in or take away options. They run only for online delivery services.
Well-known brands like Swiggy, Deliveroo, Zomato, UberEats, DoorDash have already adopted the new change. There are a few new endeavors that are launched in the commercial kitchens as they have become an additional revenue stream.
The primary challenges for the restaurant owners are lack of eco-friendliness, wastage of food, balancing the supply chain. But all of them can be tackled head-on with a cloud kitchen model.
Because customers want to receive fresh, safe, and delicious food, it has become important to fulfill their desires. The cloud kitchen serves the purpose in an efficient manner.
The Ruling Business Model of Cloud Kitchens
Having a meal is not like what it used to be earlier. Today’s hectic lifestyle leaves us with no time to prepare food. For this reason, the online food business is booming. Cloud Kitchen doesn’t require much upfront cost when compared with the dine-in or takeaway options.
This is the best way to test out the brand and the customer base. This gives an amazing opportunity to the chefs for concentrating on one objective so that they can dedicatedly prepare the food.
Technology has reshaped the food industry in a very short time span; the most recent and proven business model is Cloud Kitchen. A cloud kitchen is a production unit.
This means that orders are to be prepared and then send for delivery. The best thing is, multiple brands operate from the same kitchen. There might be different chefs for different brands or one for all brands.
Why Cloud Kitchen is better than others?
Cloud kitchens do everything for restaurant owners, from taking online orders to providing the information regarding what should be prepared to deliver and what feedback is received. This helps in getting more exposure to customers.
Since the introduction of cloud kitchens, the food ordering apps have created a monopoly market where the customers order from the portal’s own kitchen delivering on a priority basis.
Here are the reasons to invest in cloud kitchen:
-
Saving:
While marketing will be the key, cloud restaurants should also have an eye towards the future to access the operations. Artificial Intelligence is drastically impacting the food industry. And the virtual restaurants ask them for a rapidly changed prime.
-
Less Investment:
Initially, there is a traditional kitchen. Cloud kitchen eliminates the cost of setting up a dining area. This way, it cuts down the need to have a restaurant located in the prime area. It reduces the need to have a restaurant located in a prime area.
Recommended Read: 10 Ways To Cut Unwanted Cost In Restaurants
-
Completely Automated:
The model depends on delivery partners and the aesthetic appeal of the website. A cloud-based POS system is important as it will record all the transactions and will automatically update the records. So, there is no need to calculate the invoices and bookkeeping manually. This automated kitchen aims at saving time and money.
-
Less staff members:
Very professional employees are required for a fully operational outlet. Cashiers are not required for this model. The owners of the restaurant and the customers are now connected via food. Therefore, the food has to be very delicious with no chance of complaint. This is very productive.
-
Competitive pricing:
The cloud kitchen has managed to keep the real estate cost low. Customers never visit these kitchens, so they don’t have to be at prime locations. This helps restaurants to reduce the cost. Good quality food delivery is a comparatively low price.
-
Productivity increase:
As multiple brands can operate under one roof, productivity increases. This is very profitable for the investors as a single kitchen is churning out profit by catering to different tastes and housing brands.
-
Food quality:
Traditional restaurants had to face a lot of overhead expenses. The interior of their restaurants, the presentation, and everything else required capital. This is why very little money was left with them for good quality food. The cloud kitchen has completely changed the concept. The main aim is to add value to the customers. The staff is very concerned about the quality of the food. In fact, many kitchens have built their entire marketing programs with the guarantee of better quality food at an affordable price.
-
Reduction in service time:
The best thing is the virtual kitchen makes you enjoy the power of distributed cooking. If you have kitchens in more than one location, the food is served hot or cold in the least possible delivery time.
-
Menu flexibility:
The restaurant owners can keep experimenting with the menu. People quickly respond to new food trends by trying them. This means you can offer versatile food items.
-
Expansion opportunities:
The cloud kitchen offers the opportunity of massive expansion. You can run multiple brands or expand geographically with various kitchens. As per your market strategy and customer response, you can expand your business.
Over to you
Even if you have an established restaurant that is running perfectly fine, investing in a cloud kitchen will add more profit to your basket.
We hope the aforementioned information will help you start a cloud kitchen by clubbing it with an online food ordering app. Cloud kitchen is the latest invention, but they are making a mark in the food industry. They are not snatching market share, rather the model is expanding the existing market.
