After pouring more than $20bn into companies that bring meals to your door, such as Deliveroo in Europe, Swiggy in India and DoorDash in the US, tech investors are now looking at the other side of the table: how to make sure the right food is available at the right place at the right time to be delivered.
“The success of Uber Eats, DoorDash and others suggests there is a demographic shift towards consumption of prepared meals at home,” said Michael Ronen, managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “The time is now to try and stand up supply that is more efficient against that demand.”
Venture capitalists have alighted on the best solution: kitchens that only serve delivery customers, known as “cloud”, “ghost” or “dark” kitchens, that exploit a combination of advanced food preparation, underused real estate and algorithm-driven optimisation to lower overheads and increase output.