The Rise Of Cloud Kitchens

Firstly, what are cloud kitchens? Commonly known as ghost kitchens, cloud kitchens are professional cooking and food preparation facilities that cater for delivery or take-away meals. Without a physical storefront, it helps to keep rental, entry cost, and labour costs low. 

According to research done by Allied Market Research, Asia Pacific is expected to be the largest cloud kitchen market – growing at 14.4% annually from 2021-2027.

During the global pandemic, food delivery has seen the greatest shift in buying behaviour across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. In a survey by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company, 34% of 4,712 respondents cited a shift in preference for online food delivery during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns across the region.

Delivery operators across Southeast Asia such as Go-Jek, Grab and Foodpanda are actively adding on cloud kitchens to enable their restaurant partners to acquire more customers.

Here’s how we can use cloud kitchens to our advantage: 

Test new restaurant concepts

Cloud kitchens offer food and beverage businesses a way to test market readiness and start operations quickly without bearing high operating costs. As a result, it has a low entry cost, low rental, and requires less labour to operate. 

Expand your delivery area – A strategically located ghost kitchen can broaden your delivery range for a lot less than it costs to open another full-blown, dine-in location. 

Segregate your delivery and dine-in operations – It can be quite difficult to manage a flood of delivery orders in an already-busy kitchen. Having a ghost kitchen manage your delivery business can help you streamline both operations, reduce the stress on staff and be more successful all around. Accelerate your growth – Compared to a physical restaurant, cloud kitchens are much more efficient to scale up and expand to different locations nationwide.