Dark Kitchens #4 # 5

#4. Aggregator-owned dark kitchen

Increasingly, delivery aggregators –Door dash, Deliveroo, Takeaway, and Uber Eats – are moving into the dark kitchen model, offering kitchen space and equipment for restaurant businesses to rent. 

These businesses benefit from the delivery aggregator’s fleet of drivers, online ordering tech, and menu creation platform without large investments into their kitchen.

They operate on a commission-based model, and restaurants must become partners if they wish to join.

Main characteristics:

Operators usually mandate deliveries exclusively to their platform.

Minimal upfront operational costs.

Zero rental requirement; the aggregator covers the costs.

Aggregators offer data insights to optimise business performance.

#5. Aggregator-owned dark kitchen plus

This model is very similar to the aggregator-owned dark kitchen, except that the offering includes more infrastructure and optimised kitchen process frameworks. It may involve a storefront identical to the ones used in the takeaway dark kitchen model.

For example, the delivery aggregator might provide a well-equipped kitchen and take care of every operational and marketing process, except the cooking and menu – this could even include data-driven demand management.