A concept that has gained enormous popularity in the post-Covid world is that of cloud kitchen. As per National Herald, most research and consulting reports on Indian cloud kitchens suggest that market size is expected to be about $1 billion by 2023 with a healthy double-digit growth rate every year.
What is a cloud kitchen?
Also known as ghost kitchen, the cloud kitchen is a delivery-only restaurant where there is no concept of dine-in space. Customers place the orders for food via call centres, mobile apps, third party food delivery platforms and social media. In turn, the food gets delivered at the doorstep of customers. Since restaurant customers are worried about the Covid-19 contraction, they prefer to order food online rather than visiting restaurants.
Benefits of cloud kitchen
Low operating costs – Unlike the brick-and-mortar restaurants you don’t have to set up your cloud kitchen in a posh locality. Thus, you can save good amount of money in terms of rentals. One more advantage is that there is no need to hire waiters and busboys.
Technology to take care of order management – As per the survey conducted by National Restaurant Association, more than 60% of millenials want restaurants to use some technologies to make online ordering, takeaways and delivery more favourable for everyone. With digital, cloud based restaurant POS such as inresto POS you can seamlessly process orders from multiple sources, such as third party aggregators, websites and apps.
Drawbacks
Reliance on third-party delivery apps – Depending solely on third-party delivery apps may be a risky decision. The high-fees can affect your profit margins and you have little control over last-mile delivery.
Intense competition and packaging expenses – Unlike the traditional restaurants, there are no walk-in customers in cloud kitchens. The online food ordering market is already facing huge competition in the post- pandemic world. In an already crowded marketplace, the taste and quality of food offered should be excellent to combat the competition.
One more challenge is to keep the food at prescribed temperatures while delivering to the customers. To achieve this, you need to pack the food in sealed, high quality containers that again adds to your expenses.
Parting Words
In an era where restaurants are struggling to stay afloat, cloud kitchens are the future. It all depends on how you manage your cloud kitchen operations taking all the above points into consideration. Restaurants are mostly constructed of bricks and are immovable, new york food trucks are a better option due to their portability. In comparison to restaurants, infrastructure maintenance is quite low. The latter occupies physical space 24 hours a day and night, whilst the former makes do with a curbside site during business hours and then relocates to a parking lot.