You’ve seen them pop up in your Instagram or Facebook advertisements: if you’d like to have a calorie-accurate meal, then you should eat at this virtual kitchen. Virtual, “ghost,” or “dark” kitchens are online-based establishments or F&B that allow both budding chefs and established businesses to create a following. In fact, it’s a lucrative prospect especially with the rising trend of people preferring to eat organic food all over the world.
With this in mind, it’s not far off to think that virtual kitchens are here to stay and in the future become a huge part of the F&B industry. In fact, observers are quite positive about the rise of these virtual kitchens predicting an impressive 43% increase from 2017-2023 with a possible valuation of USD$3,586 million during the time period they stated.
If that’s not convincing, then here are eight convincing reasons anyone who has a talent to cook should set up their virtual kitchens and ride the tide today.
It Doesn’t Cost Much To Set Up
All you need to start a virtual kitchen is a kitchen where you can process the ingredients and cook the food you need. In fact, the very first thing you need is a price list for the dish you’re going to cook for your customer. If you’ve cooked the particular menu in the past, then you can give them a rough estimate of the costs and sell your finished product to them.
You won’t need to invest in a physical location. Virtual kitchens are mostly about making use of resources that already exist in one’s kitchen and ingredients available in your local area.
Limited Menu Guarantees Quality
To establish their brand, restaurants must provide an extensive menu that allows their target diners to enjoy their meal. Therefore, it’s much more expensive to start a family restaurant — you’ll need to make huge meals and child-friendly dishes too.
However, with virtual kitchens, you create a menu depending on your brand. For example, if you’re a fitness food brand, you create only calorie-restricted food. If you’re a fine-dining-at-home brand, you can create exquisite dishes delivered straight to your diner’s doorstep!
Huge Time Allowance for Improving Your Brand
Traditionally, restaurants succeed thanks to extensive word-of-mouth marketing in their nearby neighborhood. As fame of their delicious dishes breaks out, more people and locations express their want to try the same dishes. It’s the formula that have helped many restaurant and fast-food chains succeed and open branches worldwide. However, developing your food’s taste takes time to develop.
With virtual kitchens, you can take your time in perfecting your food’s taste. You can A/B or multi-test with your friends and trusted mentors. Then, you can experiment with your brand’s identity, understand your audience better, and more.
Online Delivery Platforms and Services Make it Convenient
There is convenience for both sides of the equation when it comes to virtual kitchens and its customers who order online. With the emergence of third-party online delivery services such as GrabFood, UberEats, Deliveroo, and other similar services, customers can place an order, the virtual kitchen can fulfill it, and the online delivery service can send the food right over the customer’s address.
With the evolution of technology nowadays, all virtual or cloud kitchens can have their respective online delivery, ordering, and inventory service. In addition, they can have their respective website and application designed specifically for online orders and customer personalisation. In doing so, virtual kitchens have access to useful information that can help them improve their products, services, and customer perspective.
You Can Make a Pop-up Restaurant Any Time
Virtual and cloud kitchens have the ability to materialise and dissolve at any time. Therefore, they can sign up for a food park or temporary food fair happening anywhere near their community. While it might take time to set up their booth, they can quickly promote the event to their following and have a physical presence.
These low-cost branding events help them gain a huge advantage because physical presence and actually touching and tasting the goods (if there’s free food) is a one-of-a-kind experience that works to the advantage of the brand.
The Internet is Always On Your Side
Virtual kitchens that have tested and perfected their products will always have reviewers and advocates of their food at their disposal. The testimonials will help increase their brand value. In addition, food influencers and blogs can help the brand improve their exposure to their respective communities often in the form of a free food review. As long as virtual kitchens have an impeccable brand, the Internet will always remain by their side.
Immediate Quality Feedback
Every dish you have delivered, social media post, email newsletter, and other communication you publish or send to each of your subscribers will give you immediate feedback about your brand. Whether it is good or bad, seeing both sides of brand perspectives helps you improve your brand for your customers for the better regardless of the situation.
A Springboard Towards F&B Success
Virtual kitchens are here to stay. In fact, many huge restaurant brands are turning virtual because of the low cost to start one when they compare it to actual physical branch opening costs. However, it can be the other way around; some virtual kitchens can gain fame through word-of-mouth marketing, effective social media and newsletter promotions, and creating dishes and menu items that sells itself because of its high quality.
Start Your Own Virtual Kitchen Today
If you’ve got culinary talent, don’t hide it from the rest of the world. Allow yourself to immerse in what you love and profit greatly from it too. Now that you’ve read about the eight qualified reasons virtual kitchens are here to stay, it’s definitely high time you entered the market and made a name for yourself too.
If you’d like to customise your online delivery platforms and have access to customer data at any time, make sure to check out how NinjaOS can help you. Drop us a line at sales@ninjaos.com.
