Oct 28 2022

Ghost Kitchens are Growing Along with Food Delivery

Delivery-only restaurants, have proliferated during the pandemic, and are changing the way the industry does business for years to come.

In order to meet the growing demand for food deliveries, restaurants are increasingly relying on off-premises kitchens. Virtual brands, ghost kitchens, and delivery-only business models that have thrived during the pandemic.

Ghost kitchens, also known as dark kitchens or virtual kitchens, are commercial kitchens built for food delivery. They’re located within the delivery radius of a high volume of online customers, rather than high foot traffic areas.

By using ghost kitchens, restaurants can outsource their takeout and delivery preparations, there’s no physical storefront or dining area, so you the restaurant only need a few back-of-house staff members to fulfill online orders. This gives restaurateurs a low cost, high efficiency model to get the most out of delivery. Ghost kitchens business model allow restaurants to increase profitability by maintaining the essential elements of a restaurant while cutting costs on labor, and overhead, while reaching a higher volume of customers ordering online. Plus, they can run multiple virtual brands out of a single ghost kitchen to increase revenue without the extra overhead.

The emergence of meal delivery apps, such as GoPuff, Wetaca, Glovo, or UberEats, as strong force in the food delivery industry has enabled the ghost kitchen model to scale better. Not only is this approach economically beneficial to the business operators, but there is low food wastage and fewer resources required to operate the business. The focus on one type of foodservice model also allows food businesses to scale more quickly and efficiently by doing delivery right. They’re also a great way to expand to new markets without spending time and money on a traditional restaurant buildout.

As this market keeps growing, Euromonitor, a market research firm, recently estimated that Ghost Kitchens could be a $1 trillion business by 2030.

We have seen a rise in the number of companies and projects in this field in Spain. For instance, Cook Room, the delivery-only cooking initiative developed by Glovo (Barcelona-based food-delivery app) allows entrepeneurs to expand their business more easily and quickly with minimal upfront costs.

Also, Cuyna, a Madrid-based startup,  offers a virtual kitchen community that enables top restaurants to improve their home delivery, taking the delivery experience to the next level. They work with self-employed, small and medium sized restaurants helping them to access the competitive food delivery market. Recently they just raised $3 million in a seed round to accelerate its food delivery technology, complemented with another €20 million for real estate investment in kitchens.