A complete guide on making cloud kitchen platform like Kitopi

Cloud kitchen platforms like Kitopi are becoming more popular nowadays. Since the pandemic, many customers prefer enjoying food delivery services instead of going to restaurants. 

Moreover, many entrepreneurs are entering the business over traditional restaurants as it needs less investment and gives more profits in return. 

So what is the cloud kitchen, and what are the reasons some popular cloud kitchens platforms like Kitopi are making great profits? Let’s explore the answer to all these questions from this blog. 

What is cloud kitchen?

Cloud kitchen provides their kitchen space to other brands to prepare delivery-only meals on their platform. The meals are prepared based on the orders made by customers through the digital platforms of cloud kitchens.

Compared to starting a traditional restaurant, it needs less investment as it does not need to provide additional facilities such as dining services, providing parking space, and other things as seen mostly in traditional restaurants.

Reducing the cost enables owners to provide the best dishes at the lowest rate to their customers, and in return, they get a perfect boost in their business by taking restaurants online.

What is Kitopi & how profitable is it to invest in the cloud kitchen business?

Kitopi is UAE based business. Kitopi provides the necessary kitchen infrastructure and its official app to allow other restaurants to open delivery-only locations. 

The overall estimated market valuation of Kitopi is more than 1.2 Billion US dollars. Since the online kitchen business is more profitable nowadays. Many other cloud kitchen platforms like Kitopi make a significant profit from this business. 

Know the future scope of this business from the given infographic.    

How does cloud kitchen work?

Here are a few business stages that can help you know the working of this business model from start to finish.

Stage 1: Taking orders from mobile apps

The restaurants and kitchens take orders from their customers through exclusive or third-party food ordering apps. Using non-exclusive food delivery apps takes a commission from kitchens on each delivered order. 

Commission reduces the profits of this business which gives them a better option to have their app by making it from a software making company. Having an exclusive food ordering app helps them to avoid giving away commission on each order to third-party apps.

Stage 2: Preparing meals based on customers’ orders

The restaurants prepare dishes according to the food orders accepted by the customers by food ordering apps. The kitchen or restaurant staff follow proper hygienic guidance to give their customers a better quality of meals.

Stage 3: Packing the meals

After the food gets prepared, each restaurant or kitchen may follow a different packaging strategy to make a unique brand impression on its customers. All the proper packaging guidelines are followed by staff to give a better meal experience to the customers.

Stage 4: Delivering food to the given customer’s address

Kitchens and restaurants partner with third-party delivery services, or they may have their delivery service give fast delivery to their customers.

Restaurants that want to have their delivery services can go for having an exclusive app for their business. Having a complete app can help them include all the customized services they want to provide for their customers.

There are many different types of online kitchen models from which you can select any online restaurant models that you can understand in the next section.

Most popular types of cloud kitchen models

Let’s explore the best options for starting your online restaurant business. You can choose any model that suits your business needs by understanding all the models in detail from this section. 

You can read this blog to understand the online kitchen models in detail. Moreover, there are other four different types of online kitchen models that we’ve discussed below.

1. Standalone Kitchen

In this model, the business takes orders online and prepares that meal. Typically, the kitchen within this category is limited to just 10-15 items on their food menu. 

Limited dishes help the owner improve their taste and focus on single dishes like pizzas with large varieties of toppings or burgers with different fillings. 

2. Cloud restaurants

The brands within this model work inside the kitchen of existing restaurants. The model uses its infrastructure and prepares dishes based on the customers’ orders. 

The restaurant that provides their infrastructure makes contracts or takes rent to allow the brands to use their infrastructure. Moreover, this model also benefits the cloud restaurant business. 

The brands can avoid investing in utensils, furniture, and other kitchen accessories.   

3. Co-working cloud kitchen

In the co-working model, many online restaurant businesses operate in one place. The separate kitchen is distributed among every online restaurant business within this model.

Each brand pays rent that uses the infrastructure of this mutual and massive size of the kitchen. 

4. Aggregator Cloud kitchen

It is an extended version of the co-working model. In the aggregator model, the kitchen infrastructure is provided to restaurants that need to make food for delivery only. 

Now take a look at some best online restaurant platforms to understand their business model. Looking at the best platform can help you quickly start your own business.

Top best cloud kitchen platforms

Check out the top best online restaurant platforms that can help you know how this business works.  

1. Nextbite

The brand allows restaurants to put their business online by allowing them to access the online services of the Nextbite platform. The platform provides different food concepts for restaurants and gives proper training to registered kitchen staff.

2. Kitchen United

The platform works in two different ways. First, it provides space for the staff of varying online kitchen brands. Next, it provides POS systems to other kitchen businesses, which helps them operate business smoothly.

3. Franklin Junction

This brand helps restaurants scale their business by providing “host kitchen” services. The services consist of data and analytics features, which help restaurants do free site analysis, match their kitchen infrastructure with their competitors, and digital marketing services.

4. Cloud Kitchens

This business is a ghost kitchen startup that provides kitchen space for different restaurants to prepare delivery-only menu items and operate their business. The brand allows restaurants to try other food concepts and scale their business. 

Their kitchens are located in densely populated areas, having more excellent records and a higher volume of delivery orders. 

5. Reef Technology

The brand is known well as ParkJockeyGlobal, based in Miami. It has many parking facilities, around 5,000 in different locations in North America.  

Reef company uses these locations as a room for hosting online restaurants in different areas for different kitchens and restaurants.    

6. Virturant

Virtuarant manages to offer a large variety of cuisines by establishing chains of multiple restaurants. The brand allows different from taking partnerships through which restaurants can manage their kitchen staff and various types of equipment by preparing and delivering Virturant’s cuisines.

If you decide to start your digital kitchen platform, as mentioned in the section of the top listed platform, you can read the next section to understand how to create your own business.

How to start a cloud kitchen platform like Kitopi?

This section will help you know the ways and requirements for starting your cloud kitchen business like Kitopi. 

The section is divided into operational needs and technical requirements to give better clarity for starting your business. 

A. Operational needs for cloud kitchen business

Let’s check out the things needed to operate your business outside the digital world. If you like to start your restaurant, this section will help you know the essential factors necessary for running your restaurant. 

1. Location 

The location is an essential factor in providing fast food delivery services to your customers. You can go for the kitchen located in the middle of the city. Having a centric location will allow your delivery partner to reach every corner of the town in a few minutes.

2. License

Having a clean and hygienic environment in your kitchen will increase the trust among your customers to order food. But not every customer will be able to locate and check the cleanliness of your kitchen. 

Having certification and licenses related to food standards can improve your food quality and create a better impression among your customers.

3. Kitchen and packing equipment

Preparing dishes in larger varieties need many kinds of equipment within the kitchen. But at the start, it will be better for you to have a minimal investment in kitchen equipment. 

You can extend your budget after making profits from your food business. Initially, you can invest in equipment like a fridge, oven, stove, and cooking utensils.  

4. Kitchen staff

Having talented kitchen staff on your team can help to boost your kitchen business by providing meals of better quality and taste. 

An experienced cook can easily make tasty dishes in less time, giving your business a better impression among customers.

B. Technical needs for cloud kitchen business

After setting up operational parts for your business, you can set up your business for digital platforms. 

1. POS System

Point of sale system is beneficial for your business in improving and getting more customers. The POS takes orders from multiple social and other platforms and maintains real-time order records. 

The system will help you find out what works best for your business by checking out your platform’s online sources of incoming massive traffic and food orders.

2. Online ordering software

It is optional to have your online ordering software. When using the third-party software for online orders, you would pay them 12%-18% for online orders and 18%-25% for deliveries. 

So it would be better to have your food ordering app that you can outsource to reliable software providers.

3. Food delivery system

There are two options to deliver meals to your customers. Either become a partner with third-party delivery services like Uber foods, or you can hire delivery boys for food delivery from your restaurants.

In case you may ask which option would be best for you. Initially, it would be better for you to partner with third-party delivery providers. After the growth of your business, you can hire delivery boys for faster and cheaper delivery. 

4. Inventory management

Managing inventory in your kitchen needs proper management to avoid unnecessary costs for running your kitchen business. Managing the overall inventory can be done well by using inventory management software.

You can quickly refill all the kitchen items by checking the inventory management software by using inventory management software. 

App development guide for making apps like Kitopi

Here is a quick guide to give an overview of cloud kitchen app development stages. Knowing all the app development steps will help you to keep track of your cloud kitchen project.

Step 1: Use of Restaurant management system to keep track of your kitchen business

Step 2: Selecting the Inventory management system to manage kitchen stocks

Step 3: Deciding the app UI

Step 4: Build an online portal for taking food orders

Step 5: Selecting and offering a great variety of payment options

Step 6: Designing a forum for taking customers’ feedback

Step 7: Building customers’ order history to see their preferable dishes and recommend them in the future

Step 8: Allowing customers to give advance orders for parties, birthdays, and celebrations. 

Step 9: Adding minimum order value feature

Step 10: Time based menu changes

Step 11: Adding SSL certification for allowing encrypted connections.

Step 12: Using POS (Point of sale system) like Shopify, Lightspeed POS, etc. 

Step 13: Utilizing CRM (customer relationship management) to improve customer experience.

Step 14: Doing app testing to see defects and drawbacks in your app.

Step 15: Promoting your kitchen business to get more customers.

Also, you can read this blog to understand all the online kitchen app development steps in detail. 

Tech stack needed for cloud kitchen business

Check out the techs and tools your development team would require to make the digital platform of your business. Understanding the tools requirement may help estimate the cost and investment needed to select and use technology and tools for your business.

Here’s the list of things to consider for developing your online platform:

• Delivery Integration Platform
• Kitchen Display System
• Analytics dashboard
• A white label delivery integration
• POS system
• Node.js
• React.js
• React Native
• Stripe
• Atlassian Confluence
• G suite
• Slack
• Microsoft Project
• Figma
• Google Marketing Platform

So we have discussed all the requirements to start a business. Now, let’s move to the end of this blog.

What have we learned so far?

As there are many different ways to start a business on a cloud kitchen platform like Kitopi. You can choose any options that suit well for your business. 

Along with setting up operational infrastructure, it will be better for you to focus on making your exclusive online kitchen digital platform by outsourcing it to the best IT companies like Idea Usher. 

Call us to get a free consultation to understand how we can help you for starting your cloud kitchen business.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you may face any doubts regarding the app development for the business, you can check this section to clear your doubts and confusion. You can also contact us for a free consultation for starting your online kitchen business.

Q. How to start a cloud kitchen business?

A. Starting your kitchen business requires a minimum investment in kitchen space, staff, and equipment. After that, you can partner with third-party platforms to take and deliver orders. By the way, we’ll suggest you have your app for taking and placing customer orders.

Q. What are the different ways to start a cloud kitchen business?

A. You can start your kitchen business in the following different options:

• Set up your kitchen and take orders from your cloud kitchen app

• Make your exclusive dishes and distribute your franchise among different restaurants through your digital platform.

• Provide a more extensive kitchen infrastructure for different cloud kitchen businesses by taking rent.