Just a hole in a wall: Dark kitchens are dominating the online food delivery market!
Even with the uncertainty in the world (damn you Coronavirus!), there is something we are certain about, and that is dark kitchens are in full swing! This concept comes with many names, you may know them as a dark kitchen, virtual kitchen, cloud kitchen or ghost kitchen. These hidden restaurants and cafes aren’t your traditional set-up, they are purely a kitchen with no dining area. In Australia, the food delivery market has expanded 76 per cent in the last five years. Hence, entrepreneurs are seeking a new way to level up in this rapidly expanding market. The success of online food delivery services such as Ubereats, Deliveroo & Menulog are those that paved the way for dark kitchens. We can all agree that being in lock down has significantly impacted our social lives, so we’ve had to resort to scrolling through Ubereats on a Friday night instead of hitting the town with friends. What does this mean for the market? With more and more people opting to eat in the comfort of their own home, restaurants and food vendors are adapting and changing to suit this new model.
This has opened an enormous opportunity for people to enter the market in a new and unique way. Whether you’re a start-up or an already existing business we have the perfect solution to get you in front of the game. Our mobile food solutions have a large range of options from shipping container conversion, food trucks and trailers or a walk-in food van fit out. All of these solutions can be utilised as a dark kitchen with a fraction of the cost of a regular bricks and mortar set-up. Better yet, you can pick the best spots all around town and set-up in different sports each night of the week (there’s no wheels on bricks and mortar!). With a fully decked out commercial kitchen on wheels you can serve your signature food or have multiple menus rolling out of one kitchen.
Dark kitchens come with a range of benefits, one in particular is the reductions of overheads. Whilst increasing the capacity of catering to the food delivery market, you’ll be eliminating the costs associated with diners and waitstaff. Due to there being no physical store, this concept also allows you to experiment with branding and menus at any time. With trends continually changing, these business can effortlessly adapt in the blink of an eye. Dark kitchens are virtual so you are able to choose your favourite or most popular food delivery apps that you would like to partner with. Most importantly, online food delivery services will continue to dominate the market until Coronavirus allows us to socialise again!
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