9 - 6 2 1 -1 0 2
REV: MAY 25, 2021
ANTONIO MORENO
GAMZE YUCAOGLU
Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
What we realized is, we're a supply chain business and we happen to have a cloud kitchen network. Supply
chain is the most complex part of a business to crack, and most people haven't used software and technology to
crack it. We think we're very well positioned to really conquer that space.
— Mohamad Ballout, Co-founder and CEO, Kitopi
In February 2021, Mohamad (Mo) Ballout, co-founder and CEO of Kitopi, a Dubai-based managed
cloud kitchen platform, was looking over the company’s 2020 results. He was very proud of the growth
and the financial results: each new Kitopi kitchen was now becoming profitable in mere months. (See
Exhibit 1 for Kitopi growth metrics 2018–2020.) The COVID-19 pandemic had fast-tracked food
delivery services and forced dine-in restaurants to focus on profitability. This presented Kitopi with
exciting growth opportunities and Ballout needed to decide which ones to concentrate on.
In 2018, Ballout cofounded Kitopi, an amalgam of “Kitchen Utopia,” in Dubai, United Arab
Emirates (UAE). Conceived as a “kitchen as a service,” it aimed to help restaurants (brands) scale.
Kitopi procured supplies and staffed fully equipped kitchens that cooked on behalf of brands and
fulfilled their delivery orders. The company was mainly positioned as B2B and worked closely with
online food delivery platforms a and was able to expand delivery areas much faster and cheaper than
if the brands had branched out themselves. Stay-at-home measures imposed during the pandemic
propelled Kitopi’s growth in 2020 as more people chose to shop and order food online. The company’s
main business grew at full speed, multiplying the number of its kitchens across the UAE, the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and Kuwait. (See Exhibit 2 for Kitopi’s expansion timeline.) As of February
2021, the company was cooking on behalf of over 175 brands in 37 kitchens across three countries and
filling one million orders monthly. While Kitopi targeted the larger F&B (food and beverage) market,
the global cloud kitchen sector was taking off globally: valued at $43.1 billion in 2019, it was expected
to reach $71.4 billion by 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.0% from 2021
to 2027. 1 Kitopi’s smaller and growing B2C verticals, including a calorie-counted-meal-plan
a Food delivery platforms referred to online platforms that offered access to multiple restaurants, where consumers could
compare offerings and order meals through a single website or app. The players also provided the logistics for the restaurant.
Carsten Hirschberg, Alexander Rajko, Thomas Schumacher, and Martin Wrulich, “The Changing Market for Food Delivery,
November
2016,
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/thechanging-market-for-food-delivery#, accessed April 2021
Professor Antonio Moreno and Associate Director Gamze Yucaoglu (Middle East and North Africa Research Center) prepared this case. It was
reviewed and approved before publication by a company designate. Funding for the development of this case was provided by Harvard Business
School and not by the company. Certain details have been disguised. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are
not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
subscription company, and Shop Kitopi, its online grocery vertical, also took off. Together they
accounted for 12.5% of the 2020 revenues.
Serving brands and working with food delivery platforms like Deliveroo and UberEats, b Kitopi was
on a mission to “satisfy the world’s appetite by delivering exceptional food on customers’ terms.” Yet
the company had no direct link to the customer. Kitopi seamlessly took over the brands’ delivery
operations, so it was not apparent to end customers that their food was being cooked by Kitopi. c As he
plotted the company’s way forward, Ballout wondered if the company could feasibly continue to own
the supply side of the business and retain its position as a predominantly B2B company without risking
being squeezed out by the food delivery platforms, who owned the customer relationship and data. If
not, how could he reach out to the customer without alienating the food delivery platform? Kitopi had
developed a much sought-after technology stack; should it consider licensing it? Might this be a way
for the company to reach geographies where it had no kitchen operations? COVID-19 had upended the
F&B industry, and Ballout wanted to seize this opportunity.
Founding Kitopi
In 2016 Ballout made a successful exit from the Baklawa Made Better (BMB) Group, one of the
largest confectionery businesses in the Middle East that manufactured on behalf of global brands.
Ballout then began looking at the F&B space to explore opportunities. He recalled, “Delivery was
contributing a larger portion of restaurants’ overall revenue than a few years ago, and their margins
were shrinking because of the commissions they had to pay the food delivery platforms. I figured there
was surely a more cost-effective way to scale up restaurants!” At the end of 2017, Ballout reached out
to a friend and mentor, Dany Farha, a board member at BECO Capital, an early-stage venture capital
firm based in Dubai. Farha recalled, “Mo came to me with the idea of creating a platform for
restaurants, just as BMB had done in confectionary. He wanted to ‘white-label’d food on behalf of
brands: integrate deep tech to kitchens to increase efficiencies and capacity utilization and help
restaurants scale globally. I had never heard of such a concept; I thought he had lost it!”
Next, Ballout contacted Saman Darkan, his childhood friend and a successful serial entrepreneur,
to detail his plan. They identified the main pain points for food delivery stakeholders and then
conceived a plan to address them. The duo focused on all three stakeholders: the brand, the food
delivery platform, and the customer. Ballout explained, “Unit economics for most is negative. Even
restaurants that make very thin margins are unable to recover the investment they make for building
a new branch.” On top of this, they pay up to 35% of their delivery revenues to the food delivery
platforms. He continued, “Also, the last thing you want to see when you’re eating out with your family
at a restaurant is dozens of drivers all around you waiting to pick up orders.” Darkan and Ballout
thought if restaurants could outsource all their delivery operations, they would not only scale faster,
but they would also have more bandwidth to focus on their core business and marketing. As for the
food delivery platforms, they had invested heavily to acquire customers; now they desperately needed
to start making money. Delivery, for one thing, was not particularly cost-effective. Ballout said, “On
b As of May 2020, UberEats exited the UAE, KSA, and four other markets and announced that for the UAE, it would transfer its
business to Careem Now, the food delivery arm of Uber subsidiary. Zubair Naeem Paracha, “UberEats exits Saudi & Egypt,
transfers business to Careem Now in UAE, MenaBytes, May 4, 2020, https://www.menabytes.com/uber-eats-exits-egyptsaudi-uae/, accessed March 2021.
c In some jurisdictions, for legal reasons, Kitopi’s name showed on the receipts’ customers received with their order. Otherwise,
there was no mention of Kitopi along the customer journey.
d White-labelling refers to a company manufacturing on behalf of another under the latter’s brand name.
2
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
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average, drivers deliver one and a half orders per hour because they need to go from one restaurant to
the other to pick up the orders. We estimate that, for the business model to work, food delivery
platforms need to do at least four orders per hour per rider. A kitchen that serves multiple restaurants
could provide a single pickup point, which would improve that efficiency.” When it came to the
customers, they wanted wide selection, availability, and value for money—and they wanted it fast. A
managed cloud kitchen could streamline the preparation of food and optimize for consistency and
speed, and it could also play a critical role in making sure that the brand was available online. Ballout
said, “Availability is a big problem: customers see the brand online today, but the next day, at the same
time, it no longer appears on the food delivery platform’s sites. This happens because, during peak
hours, in order to meet the demand in high volume areas, food delivery platforms shrink the delivery
zones of smaller restaurants so as to better serve the bigger, high-demand ones.”
Ballout and Darkan set about crafting the business plan. First, Kitopi would onboard restaurants
that were willing to outsource their delivery operations to Kitopi. If these restaurants were not yet on
a food delivery platform’s site, Kitopi would liaise with food delivery platforms to get them listed. As
soon as a customer placed an order for that brand on the food delivery platform’s site, Kitopi would
receive the order in the kitchen closest to the customer. Kitopi would capture the entire order value
and pay an average of 8% (of every check) as a royalty to the restaurant and approximately 25%
commission to the food delivery platform for having acquired and delivered the food to that customer.
The remainder, minus operational and fixed costs, would be Kitopi’s profit. Ballout knew that
profitability in such a complex model could only be achieved if Kitopi leveraged technology to
maximize kitchen utilization and efficiency. With a clearer value proposition and a comprehensive
business plan, he paid another visit to BECO Capital and the two agreed for BECO to join in on the
seed round and to socialize the idea to investors. Crescent Enterprises, a UAE-based investment firm,
also decided to join the seed round at that point. (See Exhibit 3 for Kitopi’s fund-raising history.)
In January 2018, Ballout reached out to Andres Arenas, a friend with experience in food production
to join him as a co-founder. In July 2018, Bader Ataya, a friend with experience in technology and online
platforms, joined the team as a co-founder, and the company was launched. In February 2018, they
opened the first Kitopi kitchen—a normal restaurant kitchen where cooks prepared recipes for multiple
brands side by side. The prepared meals would be handed to a runner, e who handed it over to a person
in a central packaging area to sort and bag the orders. Ballout recalled, “Everything was manual, and
we didn’t have a logical workflow yet. But we were learning and adapting every day. I convinced five
restaurant partners—friends I knew well—to trust me with their brand and let me franchise their food
delivery rights for them.” Right Bite, a healthy meal plan company that targeted customers with weight
management issues, was one of the first brands to outsource its operations. Nathalie Haddad, its
founder, recalled, “At first, one concern was related to recipe confidentiality. Kitopi gives brands
comfort and assurances about confidentiality; it takes this matter extremely seriously with procedures
in place to maintain each brand’s IP [intellectual property]. Another concern is how the ingredients are
sourced: brands provide their ingredient specification and Kitopi produces the meals as per the market
list and ingredient specifications provided by the brand.” Haddad believed in Ballout’s vision and was
impressed by the team’s responsiveness; within a year, she saw her on-demand business grow fivefold. In 2018, when a proof of concept emerged, it was easier to sign up restaurants, and the company
closed the year having onboarded 54. Meanwhile, Ballout was busy growing his team. He reflected, “It
took me about five years in my first business to realize that scaling would not happen without the right
team in place. This time around, I wanted to hire a stellar team early on.” (See Exhibit 4 for selected
bios.) Traditionally, it would take a restaurant six months to open a new location. The co-founders set
e Runner referred to a staff assistant in the kitchen that supported multiple teams working together.
3
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
their goals high; they wanted to scale restaurants by cutting the time down to mere weeks and “power
the food economy.”
Industry Background and Competitive Environment
Cloud kitchens, also known as dark or ghost kitchens, were delivery-only kitchens. Since they did
not need to attract customers to dine in, these kitchens were located in low-rent areas and were
specifically designed for rapid cooking, production, and assembly for delivery. The market’s upswing
coincided with rapidly increasing Internet penetration, an expanding number of food delivery startups,
and higher demand for online food delivery. Traditional restaurants, on the other hand, were trying to
find ways to meet the demand for delivery without compromising their diners’ experience. In 2017,
Zomato, an Indian restaurant food delivery platform, started building its cloud kitchen infrastructure, 2
and in 2018, Deliveroo, a London-based online food delivery company, launched shared kitchens in
Paris for eight of the brands listed on its platform. 3 The concept gained wide popularity in 2019, shortly
after Travis Kalanick, founder of Uber, launched his company CloudKitchens in San Francisco. 4 Market
researchers predicted that the rise in social media marketing and technological ordering systems,
combined with the modern fast-paced lifestyles and an increased demand for different cuisines would
drive growth. 5 Market reports cited network connectivity and a lack of skilled professionals who could
operate these systems as potential barriers to growth. 6 In 2020, Kroger, one of the largest grocery chains
in the U.S., debuted two ghost kitchens dedicated to delivery and pick up. 7 The kitchens were operated
by the tech startup ClusterTruck, 8 which Kroger had teamed up with in 2019. Meanwhile, more
delivery operators were entering the space: DoorDash, a popular food delivery platform in the
U.S., opened DoorDash Kitchens in major U.S. cities. Uber Eats, the food delivery platform launched
by Uber in 2014, had 5,000 ghost kitchens around the world, many of them in the U.K. 9 And there was
also Grubhub, another U.S.-based platform; it had partnered with the monthly American food and
entertaining magazine Bon Appétit to launch a delivery-only ghost restaurant. 10 It seemed that more
and more players were eager to capitalize on online food ordering.
New business models emerged as the market grew, and as of 2021, there were three different cloud
kitchen models. In the first, the infrastructure model, companies built fully equipped kitchen spaces to
rent out to brands, who came with their own staff. In essence, this model functioned as a co-working
space for chefs.11 Major players in this model were CloudKitchen and Kitchen United in the U.S. and
Kitchen Park and Zuul in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It was reported that the wellfunded CloudKitchen had spent 2018–2020 buying 40 properties in a dozen cities to build the largest
cloud kitchen network in the U.S. 12 Brand builders (or virtual restaurants) were the second model;
companies built and operated cloud kitchens to cater to their own virtual brands, which had no
physical presence. Social media fueled growth in virtual brands. Prominent among these were the
Sweetheart Kitchen (20-plus brands in 2020) in Dubai and India-based Rebel. Founded in 2010, by 2020,
Rebel had an estimated valuation of $1 billion, had 300 cloud kitchens in 35 Indian cities and was
processing over two million orders per month. 13 The third model was the managed cloud kitchen
platforms, where the company took over all kitchen operations (from procurement all the way to
delivery) on behalf of brands. In this model, companies built, staffed, and operated the kitchens. As of
2020, the managed kitchen model had the highest market share among the three and was expected to
grow faster (CAGR of 11.4% between 2017–2027) than the other two globally.14 The biggest players in
this segment were REEF Technologies and Kitopi. While REEF was predominantly U.S.-focused, Kitopi
was the first player to launch kitchens globally. In November 2020, REEF Technologies that operated
cloud kitchens out of parking lots raised $700 million, bringing its total funds raised to $1.5 billion. 15
4
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
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There were also geographical differences in appetite for on-demand food and cloud kitchens. While
the MENA region trailed behind Western Europe, Australasia, North America, and Asia Pacific,
demand for online food delivery was on the rise and was predicted to continue its upward trajectory.
(See Exhibit 5 for online ordering value as a percentage of consumer food service by region.) Between
2013 and 2018, food and drink Internet retailing in the MENA region posted a CAGR of 72%, and its
share in the total Internet retailing reached 6%. f, 16 (See Exhibit 6 for online food delivery growth in
MENA.) For cloud kitchen operations, researchers estimated a 13.8% CAGR between 2019 and 2027 in
the MENA region (versus 10% in the U.K. and 10.3% in the U.S.).17
As of 2021, restaurants were suffering badly from the pandemic measures: dining in was limited
and online food delivery was on the rise, which meant more commissions paid to the food delivery
platforms. 18 In their fight for survival, restaurants were more vigilant than ever about costs and focused
heavily on efficiency. Against this backdrop, cloud kitchens were well positioned to take a bigger piece
of the pie of the F&B market.
Evolution of Kitopi
Kitchen Infrastructure
Kitopi operated two types of kitchens in every city. Central kitchens, which operated 24/7, were
large spaces (2,000–3,000 square meters) where cooks working in shifts did the heavy lifting (sanitizing
vegetables, butchering, prepping, pre-cooking, mass producing sauces, and pre-portioning). Every
day, prepared food items were sent to satellite kitchens, which were strategically located in high
density areas around the city. These smaller (250-square meter) satellite kitchens operated three shifts
from 10 a.m. until 2 a.m. Cooks put the finishing touches on the orders, assembled and packaged them,
all in under eight minutes. At the end of 2018, the co-founders were already tweaking the initial kitchen
layout to make the economics work. Ballout said, “For the second iteration of our kitchens, we broke
down the kitchen space into stations: one square meter per brand, in contrast to the initial sharedresource logic.” Kitopi created a fully equipped stand-alone station for each brand—what they called
a “restaurant in a box”—typically fitting 20 stations into one kitchen. Cooks were assigned to brands
and were trained on all menu items of that particular brand. Darkan said, “The logic here was to
minimize the amount of time cooks spent walking back and forth in the kitchen: we wanted them to
have everything they might need right there at their own station.” Cooks were therefore able to access
the ingredients, cook, and package an order without leaving their station. Soon, however, the cofounders noticed that cooks for some brands struggled to fill all their orders during certain periods of
the day, while others were sitting idle because demand for their brand was low. g It was around this
time that Legion Richardson, who had 20 years’ experience at McDonald’s, joined the company as its
chief people officer. Richardson recalled, “During my onboarding, I spent my first two weeks in the
second-generation kitchens and quickly saw the Pareto principle at play: 20% of the brands were
getting 80% of the orders at any one time, so the station-based approach didn’t seem to be the most
efficient solution utilizing for space and labor.”
Richardson proposed a new iteration of the kitchen layout, where the space would be divided into
sections according to area of specialization (salad, grill, dessert, sushi) instead of by brand. Cooks were
f In 2019, the share of online food delivery penetration in North America was estimated to be around 31%. Online Food Delivery
Report 2020, June 2020, via Statista, accessed March 2021.
g For example, during breakfast hours, brands with popular breakfast menus were unable to meet demand, while cooks for
burgers and pizza brands sat idle.
5
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
trained accordingly (grill masters, sushi masters, salad masters…) so they could cook across brands.
Ballout accepted the idea, and generation-3 kitchens were born. Richardson elaborated, “Our kitchens
follow a proper shared resource logic: each station serves multiple brands, our cooks are cross-trained
to cook for multiple brands, resources and equipment are optimized, and waste is minimized because
common ingredients can now be used across brands. Most importantly, our generation-3 kitchen can
be scaled easily, and training of people has become easier.” Darkan explained how it worked: “For
example, when we receive an order that has a salad, a pizza, and a dessert, the order goes to three
different parts of the kitchen—the salad section, the oven, and the dessert section, where cooks only
perform that particular task for many brands. If an order includes a salad with grilled chicken, the
order is split into two prep sections, salad and grill, and combined at the end.” Since different parts of
an order were cooked simultaneously, generation-3 kitchens were much faster than the generation-2
kitchens. Quickly sensing the need to efficiently re-assemble such orders, the team equipped the
kitchen with a conveyor belt running across the stations. (See Exhibit 7 for a sample layout of a
generation-3 kitchen.)
Typically, in a generation-3 kitchen, 25 people worked for 30 brands. The new system made better
use of the space and equipment, was much less error-prone, and processed orders considerably faster
than a normal restaurant operation. (See Exhibit 8 for normal vs. Kitopi kitchen process flows.) The
order-per-square-meter metric was up 50% from the generation-2 kitchen, and the new format even
decreased labor costs. With each cook focusing on a single appliance or an area of specialization
(making salads or using the grill, for example) as opposed to cooking the whole menu of a certain
brand, Kitopi was able to de-skill its operations and employ cooks who were eager to learn multiple
cuisines. Turnover decreased dramatically. In 2021, Kitopi opened only generation-3 kitchens. While
the older generation kitchens continued to operate as usual, the company planned to convert these into
generation-3 kitchens over time.
The Technology Stack
As soon as Kitopi launched its generation-3 kitchens, the co-founders realized there was no off-theshelf software that would de-integrate a food order by “prep section” and then re-integrate it so that
the different parts of the order would come together at the packaging station. It was evident that Kitopi
would have to build its own tech stack. Darkan, the chief technology and product officer, set up a tech
base in Poland to attract top talent from across Europe, whom he then tasked to “build the best software
stack to improve customer experience and increase both utilization and efficiency of kitchens.” Over
the next year, the team installed a number of proprietary software throughout its operations.
Once Kitopi received an order via a food delivery platform, the software routed the order to the
nearest kitchen; another software then split the order and directed it to its respective sections in the
kitchen. Each section was equipped with a display screen that enabled the cooks to see the status of all
the pieces of a particular order being prepared at other sections. These screens also allowed the cooks
to report stockouts, information that would immediately be relayed to the food delivery platform site
so that it would no longer display the menu items affected by the stockout. To expedite the processing
of the orders, a software registered the arrival of drivers at the pick-up area and automatically altered
the sequencing of orders in the kitchen, prioritizing orders for which drivers had already checked in. h
Once the cooks completed their part of the order, they packaged it, stuck the order’s barcode on it, and
placed it on the conveyor belt. The individual parts of the order were assembled at the packaging
station based on their barcode to minimize the error rate. When the driver picked up the order, he
h As most customer complaints were due to delays in delivery, Kitopi created the driver check-in and organized order prep
dynamically to prioritize orders for which the driver had already checked in.
6
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
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scanned the bag and checked out. Tracking the driver’s check-in and order collection made it possible
for Kitopi to monitor and manage driver wait time.
The management team also worked on integrating the food delivery platforms and Kitopi. Food
delivery platforms typically supplied the company with one tablet per brand per kitchen for Kitopi to
monitor incoming orders. Darkan explained, “As we grew, we ended up with hundreds of these
tablets. Let alone having to keep track of the orders, we were having trouble keeping all the tablets
charged.” (See Exhibit 9 for a photo of tablets.) The team developed a “checker” that integrated all the
information on the various tablets onto one platform, which helped with visibility and resulted in an
immediate 15% increase in revenues.
Kitopi also created dashboards that presented a holistic view of all the information it was tracking
and as a brand grew with Kitopi, Kitopi Concierge, a vendor portal for restaurant partners, delivered
them metrics on ingredient optimization, inventory, and growth. It also sent feedback on menu items
to support menu engineering. On the customer side, Kitopi built a different software to track perfect
order rate, i customer retention, and contact rate. j In 2021, Kitopi planned to work on loyalty tools. Ekta
Bhojwani, vice president of consumer and partnerships, said, “Food delivery platforms can reward
loyalty with discounts, we’re able to track data at the ingredient level. We’d like customers to know
their food is coming from a Kitopi kitchen. If we can get them to join a Kitopi loyalty program, we can
track their preferences over time and offer recommendations and customize food for them.”
Kitopi was very proud of its software stack. Darkan said, “In the same way that Amazon developed
Amazon Web Services to help companies create an online presence, we built the most cost-efficient
kitchen infrastructure and optimized it with technology to help restaurants scale.” Ataya added, “To
an outsider, managing cloud kitchens may simply look like operating a kitchen space on behalf of
someone else, but technology is the critical differentiator that ensures our success; it drives our
economies of scale, optimizes our efficiency, and allows us to replicate our model across kitchens and
across markets. It is also a barrier to entry.” Ballout chimed in, “The food space is changing fast and,
finally, there is real innovation. So far, restaurateurs have run their businesses based on gut instinct.
Now they realize the importance of resource utilization and efficiency and want to take advantage of
technology.” As word about Kitopi’s tech stack got out, restaurants approached the company to license
the software. “Licensing the software can provide us another growth avenue,” Darkan said. “We might
consider it for the geographies where we haven’t planned to enter yet. Then again, that’s a different
business, so it might divert the focus from our core.” Keeping up with the latest innovations, the
company planned to pilot wearables to track cooks’ movements more closely, and it envisioned further
opportunities in robotics and automation in the kitchens to improve labor efficiency.
Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management, another technology-driven area at Kitopi, included planning,
procurement, warehousing, and logistics. While the steps were the same as in any restaurant operation,
managing them was much different. Daniel Hunt, vice president of supply chain, had years of
experience leading supply chain for the biggest restaurant operators in the region. He said, “Kitopi is
relatively small in terms of turnover, but when you look at it in terms of stock keeping units (SKUs),
its operation is much more complex than any of the quick service restaurants (QSRs) or big restaurant
chains in the region.” Making a comparison, he said, “McDonald’s has 50 or 60 menu items, and when
i Perfect order was defined as an order delivered to a customer that was complete, accurate, on time, and in perfect condition.
j Kitopi defined contact rate as the number of unique contacts, per order, by a customer to Kitopi or by Kitopi to a customer,
through calls or reviews.
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
it scales, it aggregates against the same sales base of products. Kitopi, on the other hand, manages 50
brands out of one satellite kitchen, which is 50 menu sets and many more types of ingredients. Add
onto that the complexity of shared raw materials across brands...” Managing such a wide breadth of
SKUs in small spaces required a different kind of agility, was very data intensive, and relied on data
accuracy and the ability to maximize the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) functionality.
To understand the brand’s procurement needs as soon as possible, Hunt formed a dedicated
“supply-chain growth team” that would establish a relationship with a brand before contracting with
them. In the pre-contract phase, the team examined the brand’s ingredient list to determine which SKUs
could be swapped, which were unique (and therefore difficult to source), and which were expensive
or had low margins. Next, in the kick-off phase, the team tried to finalize the brand’s SKU list, targeting
an 80% conversion to Kitopi’s existing SKU portfolio and looked for back-up suppliers. Hunt said, “The
more we convert, the more volume we're putting into our SKU base, which enables us to generate the
best prices. We incentivize brands to maximize conversion.” Before the brand was onboarded, the team
created a costing template with the brand’s recipes to illustrate what their costs were going to look like
and how much waste there might be. The company entered all these details into its ERP, cleared the
wastage of every menu item with the culinary team, set the market price, and locked in the supply
chain program. (See Exhibit 10 for a sample bill of materials.) The final step was onboarding: the team
placed orders with the supplier, set the demand plan and distribution model for the SLA (service-level
agreement) and went live. (See Exhibit 11 for an overview of the supply-chain onboarding.) Once the
brand was live, the supply-chain team continued tracking metrics to increase efficiency. Integrating
with Kitopi created 5%–10% savings on costs (less if the brand was a larger chain) just on the supply
chain.
On the operations side, Hunt’s team oversaw the SKUs going into a warehouse and their being
stored and dispatched according to the needs of the kitchens. Hunt said, “We have only a limited
amount of storage space in a satellite kitchen, so we need to optimize this space—to avoid stockouts
and having to replenish stocks too frequently.” As of February 2021, Kitopi operated its own
warehouses and logistics.
Stakeholder Management
The Brand Journey
To cater to customer preferences, Kitopi aimed for a balanced mix of global QSR brands, regional
champions (brands with 5–10 locations in a country), and local stand-alone restaurants. It also
considered the balance of different cuisines in a given country. Country managers approached brands
and determined whether they were fit for scalability by assessing operational complexity and
profitability. Once a brand agreed to grant Kitopi exclusivity on its delivery business, it took
approximately three weeks from onboarding to launch. The brand first handed over its recipes and
trained Kitopi cooks to prepare its recipes to the exact same standard as the brand’s own cooks. Kitopi
observed the cooking processes and the equipment usage to map out space utilization in its satellite
kitchens. k At the same time, Kitopi ran the recipes through its ERP system to produce the ingredient
list and planned for sourcing. In parallel, the company initiated the brand’s onboarding process with
the food delivery platform. As soon as the brand finalized the training and signed off on the final
tasting, the brand went live. (See Exhibit 12 for the brand onboarding timeline.) From that point on,
Kitopi provided data and customer feedback to the brand. Darkan said, “We think about menu design
k The company assessed kitchen utilization weekly and made necessary adjustments to increase efficiency.
8
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
621-102
in terms of manufacturability, and we sometimes go back to brands to suggest ways to reengineer their
menu—to change from a burner to a smart oven, for example, or to simplify and speed up the steps in
their order prep.” (See Exhibit 13 for a sample reengineering of a menu item.) Mike Borsdorf, who had
joined Kitopi as vice president of culinary after six years at Emirates Flight Catering, said, “We stay
true to the art, the recipe, and play with the manufacturing. To improve utilization, we look for ways
to increase throughput, l decrease complexity, and identify bottlenecks.” The company also provided
feedback on which menu items did not travel well or needed to be re-thought for delivery. “For
delivery,” Borsdorf explained, “you need to cook the pasta slightly less because it continues cooking in
the sauce in a closed container as it travels. Or, most kinds of egg dishes just don’t travel well, so we
tell breakfast restaurants to think about different menu items for delivery.”
September 2020 marked another first in Kitopi’s history: the company was instrumental in helping
Jessica Kahawaty, an influencer with over one million Instagram followers, to create the ghost brand
MamaRita in the UAE. Ballout explained, “All Jessica needed to do was to create a menu and hand us
the recipes. We cook for her brand across our kitchens, and she promotes it on Instagram, taking orders
there or on her website. It is just plug and play; we can help so many people create and scale their
brands.” By 2021, MamaRita was grossing five times as much as the delivery operations of large QSR
chains in the country, and Ballout predicted that there will be a new evolution of the type of brands
that will win over the end consumer.
Stakeholder Relationships
Food delivery platforms Food delivery platforms were essential for Kitopi’s business model;
they were the ones who generated the customer traffic. Kitopi worked with all the food delivery
platforms in its markets and managed the relationship between brands and the food delivery
platforms. It negotiated the commission and the brand’s visibility on the food delivery platform and
agreed on exclusive promotions for its brands. Ataya said, “Our kitchens have become hubs for drivers
meet, rest, and hang out. They know orders are coming through and this speeds up their ability to
respond. This, in return, increases our efficiency and helps with food delivery platforms’ last mile
costs.” Kitopi also tried to consolidate deliveries whenever possible to decrease last mile costs for the
food delivery platform. Ataya continued, “We work as partners with food delivery platforms. If food
delivery platforms tell us which cuisines are missing in specific delivery areas, we try to scale brands
accordingly. They appreciate our test-and-fail culture, and they pilot new ideas with us—things like
special breakfast combos during Ramadan or cook-at-home kits during the pandemic.”
The food delivery platform was the interface between the customers and Kitopi, but the only data
Kitopi got was their names and addresses. Bhojwani said, “When a customer leaves negative feedback,
it’s difficult for us to reach them: we don’t have access to contact information, so we have to go through
the food delivery platform’s hotline to reach out to them to understand the nature of the problem and
offer a refund or a treat.” With very limited information on individual customers, Kitopi was unable
to customize food orders (for instance, offer a personalized promotion or gift a menu item based on
their past orders). Kitopi prioritized markets where there were multiple food delivery platforms,
because this meant no single food delivery platform was able to control the demand side. Nonetheless
consolidation among food delivery platforms was taking place in many of those markets and was there
to stay. m, 19
l Throughput refers to the amount of material or items passing through a system or process per unit of time.
m In 2019, Amsterdam-based Takeaway announced its acquisition of London-based Just Eat. In 2020, Just Eat acquired Grubhub,
thus accessing North America to become a global leader. The same year, Uber acquired Postmates. Roshni Padhi, “Food Delivery:
9
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621-102
Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
Customers Working toward delivering food on the customers’ terms, Kitopi tracked several
metrics to gauge customer’s level of satisfaction. Ataya said, “At a high level, we track convenience,
availability, and quality. These KPIs [key performance indicators] then cascade into a whole range of
metrics that we track across our operations. For example, we use perfect order rate to incentivize cooks,
and we look at stock reliability to assess the efficiency of our supply chain team.” Richardson added,
“Kitopi’s culture stands on six values that emphasize our customer-centric approach and our principle
of ongoing learning.” (See Exhibit 14 for mission, vision, values.) A customer experience center in
Dubai serviced all Kitopi kitchens around the world. Darkan said, “This is our eye in the sky. We can
see granular information that helps us serve the customer better—like which items of a particular order
are ready and ones where there are delays, and who is preparing specific items.”
Community
The company was also aware of the company’s relationship with the community
at large. Ballout said, “We realize that, to have sustainable operations, we need to consider all of our
stakeholders. For example, the neighborhoods where we operate experience an increase in motorcycle
traffic, so as a token of our appreciation for their understanding, we offer promotions to that
neighborhood.”
Growing Kitopi
Geographical Expansion
While Kitopi was perfecting its kitchen operations, its brand, and its customer journeys, the
company was expanding into new geographies. The management carefully researched locations and
optimal timing for expansions. With respect to the timing, Ataya said, “Geographic expansion is
important; but we only launch a new market when we have firmly established operational efficiency
and controls in our existing geographies. Growth takes up considerable executive team bandwidth, so
we tread carefully, making sure that we are ready.” As for locations, the company looked at 140
different countries and decided to prioritize the Middle East, the U.S., South East Asia, and a few other
countries. Sami Bejjani, CFO, said, “We prioritize markets depending on multiple parameters including
the size of the addressable market, the maturity of the delivery infrastructure, the ease of doing
business, and profitability potential of that market. Once we’re in a market, we aim to open five or six
satellite kitchens quickly to ensure maximum consumer coverage across the city.” The first growth
spurt came from the UAE, where Kitopi opened kitchens in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Next were Kuwait
and KSA. In 2019, the company entered the U.K., and in late 2020, the U.S. Hit by the pandemic before
it reached critical traction, the company retreated from both to try a market entry again post pandemic.
(See Exhibit 2.) Jihad Bou Nasr (HBS MBA 2015), Kitopi’s UAE country manager, said, “Country
managers report directly to the CEO and are responsible for everything on the ground: attracting and
onboarding new brands, scouting new locations and overseeing the kitchens, liaising with food
delivery platforms and logistics, and so on. We have responsibility for both top line and profitability.”
During this time, the company developed a playbook, organized by function, that laid out everything
the company had to do to launch in a new market.
Branching out
In 2018, Kitopi branched out into direct to customer (D2C) and launched its super brand Mix ‘N’
Match on the UAE food delivery platform websites. This tool allowed customers to choose menu items
from multiple brands, bundle them into a single order, and pay only one delivery fee. Bhojwani said,
The Consolidation Saga Continues, “The MergerSight Group, July 26, 2020, https://www.mergersight.com/post/fooddelivery-the-consolidation-saga-continues, accessed March 2021.
10
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
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“Mix ‘N’ Match offered brands yet another avenue to be discovered by customers, and food delivery
platforms welcomed the concept because it drove sales. It was immediately very popular; in the first
month, it accounted for 30% of our sales in the UAE!” She tracked data to keep an eye on the customers’
pulse and updated the menu items offered on Mix ‘N’ Match accordingly.
In early 2020, encouraged by the success of Mix ‘N’ Match, Kitopi was getting ready to launch
EATOPI (short for “eating utopia”), its first customer-facing physical B2B2C offering. This concept
offered dining-in space and as well as takeout and let customers select from a dynamic offering across
brands. Darkan said, “EATOPI is the future of food courts. We know customer preferences at the
ingredient level, so we can offer items across brands and genres and provide a totally different dining
experience for the customer. You can think of this as Kitopi going omnichannel.” The concept would
not only provide choice to the customer, it would also create another go-to-market channel for the
brands without entering into competition with the food delivery platforms, thanks to its offline nature.
The pandemic forced the company to postpone this launch, however.
The company also experimented with B2C: in 2019, Haddad joined Kitopi as head of subscriptions
and reached out to more meal plan companies to sign them up with Kitopi. By 2021, subscriptions were
experiencing steady growth and creating substantial revenues. When COVID-19 hit Dubai around the
same time, there was a gap in the market for online groceries, so Bhojwani suggested the company
leverage its supply chain capabilities to launch a B2C vertical. She quickly got to work and in March
2020 launched Shop Kitopi, a 1-hour delivery value proposition that immediately became
oversubscribed. Ballout said, “With the early success of Shop Kitopi, e-commerce platforms in the UAE
started approaching us to white-label their online grocery arms, so there definitely is opportunity
there.” Hunt added, “As we grow, so does our negotiation power in procurement, and even more
avenues open up for reselling in the food space. We can be a cost-effective vendor to restaurants for
their dining-in needs as well.” (See Exhibit 15 for on-demand channel ecosystem.)
Inorganic Growth
Another opportunity that arose from the pandemic was that many restaurants were struggling
because the real estate cost of empty restaurants was becoming untenable. Kitopi offered a solution—
it would take over the physical location of the restaurant and its kitchen staff and turn it into a Kitopi
cloud kitchen. As chief growth officer, Ataya oversaw these takeovers. He said, “We repurpose the
dining area and take the brand virtual. Although we have to reengineer the space, this still presents a
fast growth opportunity for us, and it saves the brand considerable costs.” Between 2020 and February
2021, the company did nine kitchen takeovers, adding 550 people to its headcount.
A Vision for the Future
The co-founders were proud of Kitopi’s growth: the young company had close to 2,200 employees
across three geographies and was looking to double the number of its kitchens in 2021. The kitchens
were turning profitable one by one, and the co-founders also forecasted that company-wide
profitability would soon be achieved. The investment in technology was paying off: only 0.2% of all
Kitopi orders had a mistake, versus the QSR average of over 5%. 20 The company was able to ensure
99.8% availability by virtue of its close monitoring systems, and for brands working with Kitopi, food
delivery platforms were getting two and a half times the number of orders per hour than through nonKitopi restaurants. The co-founders were also proud that their tech-powered setup “democratized the
kitchen infrastructure to enable restaurants to scale in mere weeks.” Ballout was keenly aware of the
shift in sentiment in the F&B space, “If you ask people where they order their food, most reply with
the name of the food delivery platform, not the brand. That’s significant: Food is getting commoditized,
11
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621-102
Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
so customers care about getting the best value for money, which makes a difference in which food
delivery platform earns their loyalty.” Over time, the company had shifted its mission from “powering
the food economy” to “satisfying the world’s appetite,” a conscious decision to position the company
in a way that it could seize opportunities along the value chain, wherever they might be. The company’s
tech stack was drawing attention from other players in F&B, which would enable Kitopi to grow
beyond managing kitchens. Mix ‘N’ Match was a big hit, and Kitopi valued its experiments with B2C
verticals, even though the co-founders knew these required a totally different skill set. Ataya said, “Just
convincing customers to download another app is a challenge in itself.” Bhojwani suggested that since
Mix ‘N’ Match had a healthy traction, maybe it was time to relaunch it as a separate website or an
app.” n
While Kitopi solidified its foothold in the markets it operated, the company also witnessed a
consolidation of food delivery platforms across markets. o The whole team was acutely aware of the
strength of the food delivery platforms, who owned almost all of the customer data. How could Kitopi
remain relevant to the customer without owning it directly? Some food delivery platforms were
already renting out shared kitchen spaces. Kitopi operated in true partnership with food delivery
platforms, so was there any reason for the company to diversify? Farha, representing Kitopi’s biggest
investor, BECO Capital, was not worried: “Food delivery platforms can build kitchens, but operating
them is something else altogether. They might even have Kitopi manage them. Kitopi has delivered on
its initial business plan, so now is the time to raise more money and focus on expansion.” Could the
company own the supply side without being squeezed out by food delivery platforms? If not, how
should the company safeguard itself? Would any of its current or planned verticals help the company
in this regard? Was there a way for the company to position itself as an enabler rather than a competitor
to the food delivery platforms? Bhojwani thought Kitopi could possibly offer takeaway kiosks at some
of its satellite kitchens for increased visibility, which would help with brand equity. Bejjani, on the
other hand, believed the company should stay squarely focused on its core business and only expand
to consumer avenues if it needed to fulfill the company’s vision to provide exceptional food on the
customer’s terms. Ballout knew he would need answers to these questions in order to shape the
company’s future.
n At the outset, Kitopi had launched Mix ‘N’ Match as a stand-alone website but quickly folded it into food delivery platforms
because of the marketing and customer acquisition costs this required.
o In 2015, the Berlin-based food delivery group, Delivery Hero Group acquired Talabat to enter the Middle East, and in 2019 it
acquired Zomato’s food delivery operations in the UAE. Compiled from “Delivery Hero targets Middle East as high growth
region for food delivery,” Delivery Hero press release, March 11, 2015, https://www.deliveryhero.com/delivery-hero-targetsmiddle-east-as-high-growth-region-for-food-delivery/ and Karan Choudhury, “Zomato sells UAE business to Delivery Hero
Group for $171 million, Business Standard, March 4, 2019, https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/zomatosells-uae-food-delivery-business-to-delivery-hero-group-for-172-mn-119030400805_1.html, accessed March 2021.
12
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
Exhibit 1
Source:
Kitopi Expansion Timeline (2018–2021)
Compiled by casewriters based on case interviews.
Exhibit 3
Source:
Kitopi Growth Metrics (2018–2021)
Company documents.
Exhibit 2
Source:
621-102
Kitopi Fund-Raising History
Compiled by casewriters using data provided by Crunchbase.
13
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-14-
Exhibit 4
Selected Kitopi Executive Bios
621-102
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-15-
Source:
Compiled by casewriters based on company documents.
621-102
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621-102
Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
Exhibit 5
Source:
Online Food delivery Growth in MENA
Digital Disruptors: The Global Competitive Landscape of Online Food Delivery Platforms April 2019, via Euromonitor
International, accessed March 2021.
16
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customerservice@harvardbusiness.org or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.
Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
Exhibit 6
Source:
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Online Food Delivery Growth in MENA (2017-2024)
Triska Hamid, “A deep dive into the GCC’s cloud kitchen sector [part Two],” Wamda, June 12, 2020,
https://www.wamda.com/2020/07/deep-dive-gcc-cloud-kitchen-sector-part-two, accessed May 2021.
17
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621-102
Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
Exhibit 7
Source:
Company documents.
Exhibit 8
Source:
Sample Layout of a Generation-3 Kitchen
Normal vs. Kitopi Kitchen Process Flow
Company documents.
18
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
Exhibit 9
Source:
621-102
Photo of Tablets at Kitopi
Company documents.
19
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This document is authorized for use only by Joelle Haddad (haddad.j.joelle@gmail.com). Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Please contact
customerservice@harvardbusiness.org or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.
Sample Bill of Materials
Company documents.
All brand names and costs have been removed.
Note:
Size Site
From quantity From date
UAE
0.00
Size Warehouse Item type Position
Item
Size Site
From quantity From date
UAE
0.00
Product name
Size Warehouse Item type Position
CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT CAKE CK PROD INTERNAL
Item
Name
Size Site
From date
From quantity
UAE
0.00
Product name
Size Warehouse Item type Position
CHOCOLATE SPONGE PROD BASE
Item
Name
Size Site
From quantity From date
Chocolate SPONGE PROD Base
UAE
0.00
Product name
Size Warehouse Item type Position
EGGS FRESH 30PCS
Item
OIL SUNFLOWER - ALMA
Item
WATER FOR COOKING
Item
CHOCOLATE FUDGE - 500GR
Item
SUGAR SYRUP
Item
Name
Size Site
From quantity From date
Sugar Syrup
UAE
0.00
Product name
Size Warehouse Item type Position
WATER FOR COOKING
Item
SUGAR WHITE 50KG
Item
ESSENCE FOOD VANILLA 1X12X28ML1LTR
Item
CHOC HAZELNUT GANACHE PROD RECIPE
Item
Name
Size Site
From quantity From date
Choc Hazelnut Ganache Prod Recipe
UAE
0.00
Product name
Size Warehouse Item type Position
CHOCLATE DARK 70%10KG
Item
WHIPPED CREAM BENOIT
Item
BUTTER BLOCK - GARDO 25KG
Item
HAZELNUT CREAM 5KG
Item
BOX - CAKE BOTTOM-SMALL
Item
CAKE BOARD ROUND 9"
Item
STICKER 7CM - CONTAINS NUTS Item
SUGAR SYRUP
Item
Name
Size Site
From quantity From date
Sugar Syrup
UAE
0.00
Product name
Size Warehouse Item type Position
WATER FOR COOKING
Item
SUGAR WHITE 50KG
Item
ESSENCE FOOD VANILLA 1X12X28ML1LTR
Item
ROPE
Item
TAG - CAKE 5X5CM
Item
STICKER 7CM - CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT CAKE Item
STICKERS - LOGO 5*5CM
Item
STICKERS - LOGO 7*7CM
Item
Name
CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT CAKE - 1 KG
Product name
CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT CAKE 1 KG POR
Name
Source:
Recipe
ABOM-001174
Item number
883823
Recipe
ABOM-015432
Item number
882782
Recipe
ABOM-010762
Item number
880358
Recipe
ABOM-000367
Item number
1401012
7001006
2101005
5001007
880371
Recipe
ABOM-000380
Item number
2101005
5001002
8001006
880357
Recipe
ABOM-000366
Item number
5001021
5001019
6001044
5001023
1301164
1301165
1302411
880371
Recipe
ABOM-000380
Item number
2101005
5001002
8001006
1301157
1301158
1302409
1301159
1301160
Recipe Report
Kitopi Catering Services
Exhibit 10
Operation number
To date
Operation number
To date
Operation number
To date
Operation number
To date
Operation number
To date
Operation number
To date
Operation number
To date
Active Approved by
Yes UAE00336
Quantity Per series Unit
1.00 1
POR
Active Approved by
Yes UAE00336
Quantity Per series Unit
1000.00 1
GR
Active Approved by
Yes UAE00336
Quantity Per series Unit
760.00 1
GR
Active Approved by
Yes UAE00063
Quantity Per series Unit
13.00 1
PC
480.00 1
ML
1000.00 1
ML
2000.00 1
GR
80.00 1
GR
Active Approved by
Yes UAE00063
Quantity Per series Unit
1000.00 1
ML
1000.00 1
GR
5.00 1
ML
820.00 1
GR
Active Approved by
Yes UAE00002
Quantity Per series Unit
500.00 1
GR
1000.00 1
ML
100.00 1
GR
500.00 1
GR
1.00 1
PC
1.00 1
PC
1.00 1
PC
80.00 1
GR
Active Approved by
Yes UAE00063
Quantity Per series Unit
1000.00 1
ML
1000.00 1
GR
5.00 1
ML
200.00 1
CM
1.00 1
PC
1.00 1
PC
1.00 1
PC
1.00 1
PC
Approved
Yes
Approved
Yes
Approved
Yes
Approved
Yes
Approved
Yes
Approved
Yes
Approved
Yes
Formula
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Formula
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Formula
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Formula
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Standard
Line type Configuration group
Item
Item
Item
Item
Item
Item
Item
Item
Line type Configuration group
Item
Item
Item
Item
Item
Item
Item
Item
Line type Configuration group
Item
Item
Item
Item
Line type Configuration group
Item
Item
Item
Item
Item
Formula Line type Configuration group
Standard Item
Formula Line type Configuration group
Standard Item
Formula Line type Configuration group
Standard Item
28/02/2021
13:07
621-102
-20-
Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
Exhibit 11
Source:
Overview of Supply Chain Onboarding
Company documents.
Exhibit 12
Source:
621-102
Brand Onboarding Timeline
Company documents.
21
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621-102
Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
Exhibit 13
Source:
Company documents.
Exhibit 14
Source:
Sample Reengineering of a Menu Item
Kitopi Mission, Vision, Values (as of February 2021)
Company documents.
22
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
Exhibit 15
Source:
621-102
On-Demand Channel Ecosystem (as of November 2020)
Company documents.
23
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Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens
Endnotes
1 “Global Cloud Kitchen Market Size to Reach USD 71.4 Billion by 2027, September 22, 2020, via ProQuest, accessed March
2021.
2 Kritti Bhalla, “Good News For Swiggy? Zomato End Exclusivity With Cloud Kitchens,” inc42, February 6, 2020,
https://inc42.com/buzz/good-news-for-swiggy-zomato-ends-exclusivity-with-cloud-kitchens/, accessed March 2021.
3 Roman Dillet, “Deliveroo opens its first shared kitchen in Paris,” TechCrunch, July 4, 2018,
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/04/deliveroo-opens-its-first-shared-kitchen-in-paris/, accessed March 2021.
4 Katie Canales, “Ousted Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick has reportedly spent $130 million on his ghost kitchen startup.
Here’s what it’s like inside one of the secretive locations.,” Insider, October 20, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/cloudkitchens-travis-kalanick-san-francisco-location-address-pictures-2019-11, accessed March 2021.
5 Nitesh Chouhan, Himashu Vig, Roshan Deshmukh, “Cloud Kitchen Market, Global Opportunity and Industry Forecast,
2021-2027, June 2020,” via Allied Market Research, accessed March 2021.
6 Nitesh Chouhan, Himashu Vig, Roshan Deshmukh, “Cloud Kitchen Market, Global Opportunity and Industry Forecast,
2021-2027, June 2020,” via Allied Market Research, accessed March 2021.
7 Catherine Douglas Moran, “Kroger brings ghost kitchens inside stores,” GroceryDive, October 8, 2020,
https://www.grocerydive.com/news/kroger-brings-ghost-kitchens-inside-stores/586634/?s=09, accessed March 2021.
8 Catherine Douglas Moran, “Kroger brings ghost kitchens inside stores,” GroceryDive, October 8, 2020,
https://www.grocerydive.com/news/kroger-brings-ghost-kitchens-inside-stores/586634/?s=09, accessed March 2021.
9 Lauren Manning, “Full-service cloud kitchen brand Kitopi raises $60M,” RestaurantDive, February 4, 2020,
https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/full-service-cloud-kitchen-brand-kitopi-raises-60m/571644/, accessed March 2021.
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