JustKitchen operates cloud kitchens, but the company goes beyond providing cooking facilities for delivery meals.
Launched last year, JustKitchen currently offers 14 brands in Taiwan, including Smith & Wollensky and TGI Fridays.
In addition to licensing deals, JustKitchen also develops its own brands and performs research and development for its partners.
But on-demand food delivery businesses are notoriously expensive to operate, with low margins despite markups and fees.
By centralizing food preparation and pickup, cloud kitchens (also called ghost kitchens or dark kitchens) are supposed to increase profitability while ensuring standardized quality.
Before partnering with restaurants and other brands, JustKitchen meets with them to design a menu specifically for takeout and delivery.
Each spoke kitchen puts the final touches on meal before handing them to delivery partners.
Spoke kitchens are smaller than hubs, closer to customers, and the goal is to have a high revenue to square footage ratio.
Since JustKitchen offers several brands in one spoke, this gives delivery platforms more opportunities to stack orders from different brands.
In addition to partnerships, JustKitchen also develops its own food brands, using data analytics from several sources to predict demand.
The new demand for food delivery in the U.S. “is part of the new norm and we believe that is not going away,” he added.
JustKitchen is preparing to launch in Seattle and several Californian cities, where it already has partners and kitchen infrastructure.
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