Feb 18, 2020
Food delivery apps driving the rise of ‘dark’ kitchens in India
NEW DELHI: First things first. Food in the so-called “dark” kitchens are not cooked with the lights switched off. They are called so primarily because of their delivery-only model.
The growing popularity of food delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato has led to a surge of such kitchens in India, which are also called “virtual” or “cloud” kitchens by some.
Some prefer to call them “ghost” kitchens as in many cases, you may not even know that they exist.
Did you know that popular eateries like Haldiram’s, Chaayos, Keventers, Saravana Bhavan and Vasudev Adigas, to name only a few, have set up cloud kitchens in partnership with Zomato?
They have. And that is the reason why you get to order food from these eateries even in areas near where their restaurants may not exist.
“We started this model in March 2018, when we realised that while a lot of budding entrepreneurs are setting up new restaurants and cloud kitchens, the pace of setting up new kitchen infrastructure has been lagging behind the demand for them,” Mohit Sardana, Chief Operating Officer, Food Delivery, at Zomato told IANS.
“We wanted to accelerate the process of investment in kitchen infrastructure in areas facing a supply deficit and therefore, created the Zomato Kitchens model. Today, we are present in 50+ cities with 700+ kitchens that are already operational,” Sardana added.
One factor that has worked in favour of the food delivery platforms is the data they have about consumers’ preferences. Analysing these data allow them to gauge the nature of the demand of food a particular area generates.
Armed with these data, the food aggregators can confidently approach a restaurant business for cloud kitchen partnerships in new areas that are likely to generate handsome profits for both parties, according to people familiar with the way these partnerships tend to forge.
Swiggy launched its cloud kitchen initiative “Swiggy Access” in 2018 and since then it has created over 1,000 kitchens for its restaurant partners.
Through “Access”, restaurant partners can test new markets and expand intra and intercity, with no rent or deposit charged for the premises/infrastructure, Swiggy said.
Swiggy shares valuable insights not only regarding existing customer preferences, but also on unmet food choices with partner restaurants, thereby helping them fulfil the demand-supply gaps.
Restaurant partners are also able to leverage Swiggy’s insights to improve their food quality through consistent customer feedback and optimise their kitchens for factors like stock planning, demand forecasting, preparation time and order edits.
Swiggy said that it is committed to working with the restaurant partner community to bring in the necessary confidence and control to ensure there is no compromise in the safety of food.
The food delivery platform added that it mandates all restaurants and cloud kitchens operating on the platform to possess a valid Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) licence and additionally conducts hygiene audits across the restaurant partner network with credible third-party audit firms.
Zomato said that one of the biggest advantages of virtual kitchens is the relatively low investment and business risk.
“If you look at our model, we ensure the restaurateur is supported well enough to focus on what he does best — food — instead of being weighed down by compliances and high rentals, among other necessities. That too, with minimum investment. We also draft a customised growth plan with aggressive marketing support, which is unique to their business proposition,” Sardana said.
“These are delivery only dark kitchens and are not usually set up on high streets. However, there will be a few locations which are on high footfall areas and can be easily spotted. On the app, all kitchen restaurants appear in the same manner to a user as any other delivery only outlet on our platform,” he added.
Zomato said that it has set for itself “high safety and hygiene standards”.
“We have invested time and energy in durable engineering to make sure that we deliver quality kitchens for our partners to use and expand into new markets, wherein with our support on compliances, they do not see the basics as a hindrance when opening up a new facility,” Sardana said. (IANS)
Coronavirus: FSSAI to step up efforts to improve hygiene at fish, meat shops
Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) believes it is critical to raise the bar for hygiene and food safety practices adopted in meat and fish shops and slaughterhouses in the country, at a time when the world is coping with the novel Coronavirus outbreak, which has reportedly originated from a wholesale animal and seafood market in Wuhan, China.
The food safety authority has stepped up efforts in this direction and will be initiating hygiene-rating certification for meat and fish shops in collaboration with the State governments. In the past year, it conducted third-party audits of municipal slaughterhouses and is in the process of making third-party audits mandatory for private fish and meats shops and slaughterhouses (among other high-risk food categories).
Pawan Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI said, “The issue of hygiene and food safety practices adopted in the meat and poultry sector has becomes even more significant, at a time when the world is dealing with the novel coronavirus. We want to focus on further increasing sensitisation among food business operators and consumers regarding the issue of food safety and hygiene in this sector.”
Market surveillance
Elaborating on the steps taken by FSSAI, he added, “We conducted audit of municipal slaughterhouses in the past year and believe they require a lot of hygiene upgradation. Private slaughterhouses are also now getting third-party audits. At the same time, we have initiated hygiene-rating certification at our own cost for meat and fish shops in collaboration with the State governments. Initially we will fund hygiene-rating certification for 50 meat and fish shops to create sensitisation.” FSSAI hopes that hygiene rating scheme will be adopted by all meat and fish product shops in the next one year.
The food safety regulator will also begin a market surveillance exercise to look into the issue of safety and quality in imported packaged food and food supplements in the coming months. “We have received many complaints regarding quality and safety of imported packaged food products and food supplements. So, we will be doing a market surveillance of certain categories of imported products to understand the key problems in this space,” Agarwal said.
Testing facilities at ports
To ensure ports used for food imports are linked with proper testing facilities, FSSAI has already rationalised the number of ports allowed for food imports to 150 from 360. “Further, we may look at putting additional restrictions on import of certain products from certain ports which may not be adequately equipped to conduct proper inspection and testing of those categories of food products, ” he said.
On Monday, FSSAI announced the setting up of six branch offices, four import offices and two food laboratories in the country to strengthen its pan-India presence in the country. With this, FSSAI will have four regional offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, 12 branch offices and 6 import offices, it stated.
It will also have four national food laboratories in Kolkata, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai JNPT and Chennai. While it has already upgraded the national food lab in Delhi-NCR (Ghaziabad), work on upgradation of the Kolkata-based national lab is in the advanced stages. “We will set-up two new food labs in Mumbai JNPT and Chennai and the already built-up space will be taken on long-term lease from port authorities to establish these two new food labs,” Agarwal said. He added that laboratory extension centres at Sanauli and Raxaul on Indo-Nepal border will also be expanded into full-fledged food labs.
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