Cloud Kitchen Automations
The cloud kitchen segment has a new player in town.
What their promise is to bring to the table is not just the supply of organised large-scale kitchen infrastructure but also the emphasis on efficiency and cloud kitchen automation.
The promise is to look at kitchen automation, IoT and robotics.
Travis Kalanick of City Storage System has made his foray in India. Travis Kalanick, through City Storage System, has invested in Rebel Foods and a commencing their own operations with City Storage Systems.
In this article highlight key features which will have a future impact on cloud kitchen business.
Who Is Travis Kalanick
Is American billionaire who is the co-founder and the former CEO of Uber. He founded an investment fund 10100 to invest in new business. He started CloudKitchen, which the real estate company that provides smart kitchen is for a delivery-only restaurant. He is also the CEO of City Storage Systems, which focuses on repurposing distressed real estate assets.
Cloud Kitchen Infrastructure Service
City Storage Systems will provide cloud kitchen infrastructure services.
Kitchen infrastructure services are supply-side endeavour in which provides ready to use kitchens for cloud kitchen owners.
This aggregation of supply of food will allow for efficiencies in the system and promise for closer proximity to end consumer.
Kitchen infrastructure services are also provided by Swiggy and Zomato. There are also several other independent players in this segment.
The advantage of using City Storage Systems is that you don’t have to align with either Zomato or Swiggy, if you had taken Zomato Infrastructure Services (ZIS) then the operator will be bound to use only their services but now with City Storage Systems you would have the opportunity to work with both the food aggregators.
City Storage System Model
In their model, each city will have a general manager who looks after operations in real estate. They up to generate demand through online ordering, consulting and marketing.
The Promise of City Storage System
What their promise is to bring to the table is not just the supply of organised large-scale kitchen infrastructure but also the emphasis on efficiency.
The promise is to look at automation, IoT and robotics.
Efficient Cloud Kitchen
The entry of Travis Kalanick in India is a boost for the cloud kitchen market but in my opinion, their implied focus on efficiency will have far-reaching effects.
Cloud kitchen is are inherently inefficient. They're also fighting for market share and have increased pricing pressures because of increased competition and promotional practices of food aggregators.
Cloud kitchen operators may not have optimised production, purchase or delivery operations, in that light the promise of Travis Kalanick is interesting.
Let’s illustrate some of these.
Cloud Kitchen Automation.
Keats a Berlin-based company has invested a lot in automation. They focus on how to revolutionise food preparation to achieve a really simple goal-serve hot food hot.
They have designed food which can travel well.
In the automation venture they have invested in Wi-Fi-connected ovens, software supported food send process amongst others.
IoT Application In Cloud Kitchen.
IoT means the Internet of things.
This is where machines can talk to each other.
The application of IoT can be used in monitoring temperature food to inventory management and better production practices.
Imagine food being delivered to a customer and the service provider will be alerted if the temperature of food falls below the threshold level.
Production in most cloud kitchen is not thought through. IoT can enable the food operator which is right quantity food, produce the right quantity of food and serve accurately. To get a deeper perspective read Cooking With IoT
It promises the increase in efficiency results in greater production capacity and increases margins.
Robotics In Commercial Cloud Kitchen.
The promise of robotics is that machines can do the work of cooking of food cheaper faster and better as a human being. Your next order could be prepared by machine or an automated production system.
This has been implemented in the West in bits and pieces, look at the video to understand the potential.
Pizza Created by Robots Kitchen- Video
In a country like India, they will also be concerned with the social impact.
Will robotics replace jobs?- Video
Robotics in Indian Kitchen will happen but in distant future. Currently the biggest challenge is proximity to consumer.
What does this mean for you?
As a cloud kitchen operator, you will have an option to participate in kitchen infrastructure services without aligning to any one food aggregator.
An established operator will be able to quickly scale up to new locations. Kitchen infrastructure services promise to lower the barrier to expansion for established players.
This is going to be better for consumers. In the foreseeable future, you will see further price drops. There will be faster delivery of food.
Imagine food being delivered to you within seven minutes.
There will be a flight toward quality. As a gets more and more competitive mediocrity and inefficiency will get sacrificed.
What can you do now?
Cloud kitchen is here to stay and will continue to grow tremendously.
But as you invest in this business consider thinking of operation design of the kitchen. Think of adopting technology to bring about greater efficiency and understanding of your business. Finally, think of scale.
Summary
The investment by Travis Kalanick is a boost for the cloud kitchen infrastructure services. It is a matter of time that these five billion-dollar company will have a national presence.
The consumers and the operators are going to be spoilt for choice with better price discovery and greater efficiency in the business model.
In my view what is exciting is City Storage System emphasis on efficiency and bringing in automation, IoT and robotics. It is also a signal for first-time operators to adopt technology to enable to bring about efficiency the operations and scaling the business.