At risk of them getting wind of this hack and ruining it: you can filter out basically all the ghost kitchens by filtering for pick-up orders - tends to be only legit restaurants that allow actual customers to collect food themselves. You can then change it to delivery when ordering.
Great story, though it raises a concern for me. Following food poisoning from a deliveroo earlier this year, I now look up the hygiene rating of any new takeaways I order from. If you dont necessarily know where your food is coming from, Is this possible? I dont believe these apps share hygiene ratings.
The company arranging these request a 4 star rating, but do they re-check them regularly? As I understand from talking to a council hygiene expert a few years ago, lots of poorly rated restaurants dart between good and bad ratings, just about keeping themselves open. Many restaurants also dont get checked very often.
Maybe I'm being overly cautious but I'm not happy hearing about this practice without it being fully displayed upfront with detail of where the food is coming from.
As a coeliac my primary concern is the allergen issue. Some brands are really good with allergens in-house but as soon as you have another kitchen cooking it, you introduce the chance of extra allergens or changes in workflow. I’d love to hear more about how they try to avoid this.
In principle—and I’ll come to the caveats—I don’t have a problem with this concept, mainly for one reason: if you do object to, say, GBK ingredients being cooked in a way GBK approves by staff GBK has trained, you’re more or less saying that what distinguishes your meal is the building it was cooked in. But the caveats are important: preparation and ingredients have to be up to a required standard. But the recognisable brands hopefully understand the reputational risk they’re taking and how important it is for them to maintain those standards.
I just think it feels a bit like everything in media; ultimately flattened to recognisable brands that pause you to briefly pause while scrolling a feed. But for food.
I can see that. Partly (of course, as with so much of consumer behaviour) we have to take some of that on the chin: we as consumers are in the position of ultimate power and can collectively determine which businesses prosper and which fail. I also think the dynamics at work are incredibly complex, bundling up price, quality, reputation, habit, chance, the vagaries of human instincts, availability, outside seemingly random influences, the zeitgeist…
The trouble is, if you've got a really good local e.g. Greek place near you, they could now be in competition with a bigger name brand like The Athenian. If the local gets run out of town, that's another empty unit.
As the end paragraph implies.... The output of these host kitchens is often at best average.
Disinterested cooks making it. Not as much training (or learning through repeat cooking) as a full brand restaurant. Host kitchens, like any franchise, might not have consistent quality in ingredients, prep process, hygiene that the brand could more easily enforce if it was their own kitchen.
The problem is that customers are happy to accept average, instead of seeking out above average from local independents. If you look at the ratings some of these brands in a host kitchen get, it's between 4 to 5. Which then gives that brand more visibility in the search results and the order volumes to make this viable.
Now, customers settling for average from a trusted brand is not unusual. Think Prezzo, Zizzi, Pizza Hut, etc on the high street.... Even GBK... but we've now largely shunned those chain brands on the High Street, hence why GBK ran into difficulty. Why are we accepting them on delivery platforms?
Jim - your writing is consistently interesting and insightful. I don’t live in London (I work there) but LondonCentric is by far the best local news site I know of. Also what starts in London ends up everywhere else soon enough.
I invest (small amounts) in lots of smaller, early stage businesses, typically through the two main platforms (Republic and CrowdCube). Over five year ago Peckwater Brands launched the host kitchen idea and (through various later investment raises) have seen their value 20x. It is fair to say that they a) have been doing this a lot longer than a year, and b) have been leaders in this in London.
PS I also invested in (cough) Really Local Group as loved that idea. Thanks for your piece on that, always great to surface things!
Sorry, but this is just wrong - and with all due respect, I don't trust a French place churning out American ribs in the evening. And in line with a previous commenter, I am very concerned about allergen cross-contamination - I'm allergic to fish & seafood, so I won't even eat at a "Kebab & Chippie" because I don't trust them to avoid getting fish remnants on chips or a kebab. When Deliveroo started out, it was really nice because you could get really good food without having to call, but since it's exploded I only ever order from places that I genuinely know to be actual restaurants in my area. There isn't a Dishoom in my area, so I will find another great Indian restaurant, or go to the actual Dishoom restaurant.
This is essentially just a variation on franchising; instead of buying into a whole, recognisable brand from the products on sale to the name above the door, it's simply local businesses providing a service to those with bigger, wider brand recognition. It is obviously leading to a degree of homogeneity, though, but if customers don't care that much, they'll get the quality of food they deserve.
Yeah so this ties to my impression that people in this city don't really care that much about food but care about having comfort food. And that most deliveroo food is the same.
In any case I was wondering the same as in the last part of the article: do restaurants really benefit from this?
This is such a fascinating concept. On one hand, I can foresee why consumers might have a problem with this.
On the other, a takeaway that moonlights as a big brand might just generate enough money to save the business. The gross reality is that without these schemes, all the independent restaurants would likely have to continue rising their prices just to make ends meet.
I suppose the question is: would you endure this practice if it prevented the prices at your local takeaway rising 20%?
At risk of them getting wind of this hack and ruining it: you can filter out basically all the ghost kitchens by filtering for pick-up orders - tends to be only legit restaurants that allow actual customers to collect food themselves. You can then change it to delivery when ordering.
Genius!
Great story, though it raises a concern for me. Following food poisoning from a deliveroo earlier this year, I now look up the hygiene rating of any new takeaways I order from. If you dont necessarily know where your food is coming from, Is this possible? I dont believe these apps share hygiene ratings.
The company arranging these request a 4 star rating, but do they re-check them regularly? As I understand from talking to a council hygiene expert a few years ago, lots of poorly rated restaurants dart between good and bad ratings, just about keeping themselves open. Many restaurants also dont get checked very often.
Maybe I'm being overly cautious but I'm not happy hearing about this practice without it being fully displayed upfront with detail of where the food is coming from.
You can check the hygiene rating (in fact you can filter on it), and it’ll link to the actual restaurant’s rating.
Wait, so the Athenian is cooking GBK orders, while the Little Kebab House is cooking Athenian orders?
Yes!
That is so bonkers I thought it had to be a typo!
As a coeliac my primary concern is the allergen issue. Some brands are really good with allergens in-house but as soon as you have another kitchen cooking it, you introduce the chance of extra allergens or changes in workflow. I’d love to hear more about how they try to avoid this.
In principle—and I’ll come to the caveats—I don’t have a problem with this concept, mainly for one reason: if you do object to, say, GBK ingredients being cooked in a way GBK approves by staff GBK has trained, you’re more or less saying that what distinguishes your meal is the building it was cooked in. But the caveats are important: preparation and ingredients have to be up to a required standard. But the recognisable brands hopefully understand the reputational risk they’re taking and how important it is for them to maintain those standards.
I just think it feels a bit like everything in media; ultimately flattened to recognisable brands that pause you to briefly pause while scrolling a feed. But for food.
I can see that. Partly (of course, as with so much of consumer behaviour) we have to take some of that on the chin: we as consumers are in the position of ultimate power and can collectively determine which businesses prosper and which fail. I also think the dynamics at work are incredibly complex, bundling up price, quality, reputation, habit, chance, the vagaries of human instincts, availability, outside seemingly random influences, the zeitgeist…
The trouble is, if you've got a really good local e.g. Greek place near you, they could now be in competition with a bigger name brand like The Athenian. If the local gets run out of town, that's another empty unit.
As the end paragraph implies.... The output of these host kitchens is often at best average.
Disinterested cooks making it. Not as much training (or learning through repeat cooking) as a full brand restaurant. Host kitchens, like any franchise, might not have consistent quality in ingredients, prep process, hygiene that the brand could more easily enforce if it was their own kitchen.
The problem is that customers are happy to accept average, instead of seeking out above average from local independents. If you look at the ratings some of these brands in a host kitchen get, it's between 4 to 5. Which then gives that brand more visibility in the search results and the order volumes to make this viable.
Now, customers settling for average from a trusted brand is not unusual. Think Prezzo, Zizzi, Pizza Hut, etc on the high street.... Even GBK... but we've now largely shunned those chain brands on the High Street, hence why GBK ran into difficulty. Why are we accepting them on delivery platforms?
Jim - your writing is consistently interesting and insightful. I don’t live in London (I work there) but LondonCentric is by far the best local news site I know of. Also what starts in London ends up everywhere else soon enough.
I invest (small amounts) in lots of smaller, early stage businesses, typically through the two main platforms (Republic and CrowdCube). Over five year ago Peckwater Brands launched the host kitchen idea and (through various later investment raises) have seen their value 20x. It is fair to say that they a) have been doing this a lot longer than a year, and b) have been leaders in this in London.
PS I also invested in (cough) Really Local Group as loved that idea. Thanks for your piece on that, always great to surface things!
Sorry, but this is just wrong - and with all due respect, I don't trust a French place churning out American ribs in the evening. And in line with a previous commenter, I am very concerned about allergen cross-contamination - I'm allergic to fish & seafood, so I won't even eat at a "Kebab & Chippie" because I don't trust them to avoid getting fish remnants on chips or a kebab. When Deliveroo started out, it was really nice because you could get really good food without having to call, but since it's exploded I only ever order from places that I genuinely know to be actual restaurants in my area. There isn't a Dishoom in my area, so I will find another great Indian restaurant, or go to the actual Dishoom restaurant.
This is essentially just a variation on franchising; instead of buying into a whole, recognisable brand from the products on sale to the name above the door, it's simply local businesses providing a service to those with bigger, wider brand recognition. It is obviously leading to a degree of homogeneity, though, but if customers don't care that much, they'll get the quality of food they deserve.
Yeah so this ties to my impression that people in this city don't really care that much about food but care about having comfort food. And that most deliveroo food is the same.
In any case I was wondering the same as in the last part of the article: do restaurants really benefit from this?
This is such a fascinating concept. On one hand, I can foresee why consumers might have a problem with this.
On the other, a takeaway that moonlights as a big brand might just generate enough money to save the business. The gross reality is that without these schemes, all the independent restaurants would likely have to continue rising their prices just to make ends meet.
I suppose the question is: would you endure this practice if it prevented the prices at your local takeaway rising 20%?