Whatever you call them; ‘Dark kitchens’, ‘ghost kitchens’, ‘cloud kitchens’, they are the best kept secret that the consumer doesn't know about! They are not only a rising trend but have the potential to be very disruptive in the restaurant and takeaway sectors.
If we're talking about winners of the pandemic, then the UK food delivery and takeaway market continues to grow at a rate of knots, due to the expansion of online delivery companies such as Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats, and as a result of changing consumer behaviours exacerbated by the restrictions imposed on us by the Government’s response to the pandemic. And of course, this is all coupled with the rising trend for using apps and phone technology for online shopping.
Dark kitchens are food kitchens set up predominantly for the purposes of servicing takeaway orders. They are called ‘dark’ because they have no shopfront and, unlike traditional takeaway operations are usually located either in industrial buildings, in shipping containers at car parks, or in other buildings in low rent areas.
The advantages of this model are obvious. Several kitchen operations can be consolidated under one roof and served by one delivery operation without the need to pay high street rents. And orders can be serviced quickly and efficiently to satisfy the customers’ increasing demand for greater speed and convenience. Even restaurants that have traditionally had a high street presence are recognising the advantages of diversifying into the takeaway market or adding a delivery service onto their existing operation.
Many large restaurant chains are either setting up their own network of dark kitchens or use the dark kitchen networks and delivery operations of companies such as Deliveroo. Indeed, restaurants are starting to open that have no physical presence on the high street and instead run all their operations from dark kitchens. There are also several start-up operations that solely buy and rent out dark kitchens to other brands with the possibility of multiple brands sharing one kitchen. A good example of this is Karma Kitchen in the UK.
