May 26, 2022
4 in 10 (40 per cent of) independent restaurants in Canada currently operate virtual brands in addition to their usual on-site business. The interesting part is, these virtual brands, meant for delivery only, are not necessarily owned by the same restaurants. Only their existing premises are utilized as cloud kitchens to produce for virtual brands. Here comes the future of online food delivery – a massive opportunity for Bangladeshi Restaurants.
What is a virtual brand?
Itâs estimated that virtual restaurant brands will become a $1 trillion industry by 2030, according to Michael Schaefer, global lead for food and beverage at Euromonitor International. Hence, we cannot ignore virtual brands. These are delivery-only brands owned by digital franchisors like CloudEats, Tiffin Labs or Onnow. These startups hire the best culinary experts to create unique and innovative food and beverage brands that the consumers want to order online. In order to do, obviously a massive upfront investment is utilized. Once the virtual brands are ready, these startups offer traditional independent restaurant owners a low risk, all in one solution to launch a profitable delivery-only virtual brand in their existing kitchen operations, with zero upfront fees.
Why add a virtual brand to an existing restaurant?
It is very necessary to understand that cloud kitchens arenât detrimental to the traditional offline restaurant industry. Having said so, most of these independent restaurants are still not able to make enough money to cover their operating expenses (OPEX). Why is that? The simple answer lies within their operational inefficiencies. With under-utilized kitchen capacities and manpower, absolutely broken kitchens and minimal use of kitchen technologies, these restaurants are not able to get the maximum return out of their investments. The good news is, now with startups like Onnow, Bangladeshi local restaurants are able to add a virtual brand, for example, Wrappo, and cover up for the gap which is required to ensure maximum efficiency inside their kitchens which ultimately results in incremental revenue and added profit. Furthermore, since the supply-chain or technology or branding or product development headaches for restaurant owners are out of the way, they can enjoy these additional profits with very limited involvement.
How does it look now for Bangladesh?
As of May 2022, Onnow runs the largest cloud kitchen operations in Bangladesh. Notable virtual brands of Onnow like Friggy’s, Wrappo, Snackmate and Party Pizza are running at over 25 outlets in the city of Dhaka alone. We plan to take this number to 60 by the end of this year, and over 700 by Dec 2025, covering all of Bangladesh. We oversee menu, vendor management, quality control, packaging, order generation and supply-chain where as our restaurant partners are only required to do the production for us, and generate additional cash to make their restaurants profitable.
Do you own a Restaurant?
If you own a restaurant or a cloud kitchen in Bangladesh, become our Restaurant Partner and improve your ROI on your existing fixed assets without spending a single Taka (ā§ŗ) on Branding, R&D, and Technology.
