Did you know that cloud kitchens are on the rise, especially since the inception of COVID? The concept is so unique, due largely in part to its affiliation with food delivery and virtual kitchens.
Today, we’re going to be taking a look at the incentives of cloud kitchens and why they have been a force multiplier for companies like WEUNGRY Kitchen who utilize ghost kitchens in USA.
The mission of WEUNGRY is to cater to the needs of the community and continue to facilitate through supply and demand while simultaneously running the shared kitchen and virtual kitchen spaces with others more efficiently by providing them with the tools and resources to be successful.
One restaurant can be in control of several brands, or virtual restaurants, all working in one facility, or the kitchen can run very strategically in a way that is conducive to maintaining a steady workflow.
Think of a large warehouse with various stations (mini-restaurants) of stainless steel prep tables, hood vents, stoves, ovens, and sinks, each station has its own method of getting orders for the customers.
Cloud kitchen menu items are designed for streamlining the production and delivery process. They are mostly located in industrial complexes, cloud kitchens can provide driver parking, waiting areas for drivers (and with screens that check on order times) and check-in stations for an easy driver pick-up.
All designed to get food out your door and to your customers in a quick and timely manner.
Cloud kitchens are very tech-friendly. Smartphone apps, such as Talabat, Zomato, and Careem, work closely in conjunction with the cloud kitchen concept. By doing this, they use large amounts of data to determine what types of foods are suitable for certain areas, devising strategies to efficiently facilitate the growing demand.
For instance, hot wings tend to be really popular between 11pm-2am on college campuses. The data is accurate and is prompting the business to make the necessary changes.
As the technology has become more and more innovative, additional services have emerged to meet the demands of various delivery apps into a singular system.
For easier production of multiple orders and delivery coordination and ideal food purchases and production software for decreased food waste and an increase per meal in economics.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for this industry, and WEUNGRY Kitchen tapped into something real early.
This approach allows them to get the most bang for their buck with their current staff, storage, ingredients and kitchen space are also maximized for the best return in profits. In certain scenarios, you can pick up the food from their locations.
The delivery-only menu items could be similar to what ordinary restaurants have on their menus, or the concepts could be different altogether.
An Italian restaurant, as an example, might offer a delivery-only pizza brand from one kitchen, or it could diversify and offer other items for takeout or delivery.
When the consumer-facing side of a kitchen is running in the cloud (ie. when it doesn’t have any physical storefront, food truck, pick-up area), it is a true cloud kitchen. Dedicated cloud kitchens are able to solve some of the pain points by targeting all of these different brands, based on the demands of their consumers.
Each of these brands are known as virtual eateries and one business model is to run a delivery-only kitchen which has one or multiples of these concepts.
The virtual concepts look independent to consumers that are making food orders, but in reality, the food production is happening discreetly in a warehouse or food factory in conjunction with other kinds of virtual restaurants.
To run a virtual restaurant, it’s necessary to have a license, commercial kitchen space to rent during times of operation, accessibility on a delivery app, and coordinated labor, delivery supplies, and ordering of ingredients.
A cloud kitchen like WEUNGRY’s, is able to deliver on all fronts to accommodate its growing clientele.
Another way to turn a profit from the boom in food delivery is to use cloud kitchens as its own business. While businesses like WEUNGRY Kitchen run a private label multi brand operation, there are other concepts that are renting kitchens to many third-party businesses, acting like a coworking space and place of work for food producers.
This model involves acting more like a landlord rather than being the one in a food producer role. However, it’s in your best interest to become more hands on in working to promote and provide services for the brands that use your kitchen space in order to be successful.
