CLOUD KITCHENS: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES TOWARD COMPETTITIVE CAPACITY OF THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS

Abstract

Cloud Kitchen is the restaurant without the storefront. There are not seats for customers. Customers can order foods through distribution channels online according using the applications.  It has also a shared-kitchen as a cooking place and food delivery point. There are 5 types of cloud kitchen, namely 1) hub and spoke kitchen 2) pod kitchen 3) commissary kitchens/aggregator 4) outsourced kitchen and 5) independent kitchen. The benefits of Cloud Kitchens to entrepreneurs are categorized into 4 areas: 1) business operations 2) financial management 3) marketing management and 4) human resource management. This article aims to study the opportunities and challenges of Cloud Kitchens toward the competitive capacity of the restaurant business by using the PESTLE Analysis concept as a tool for analysis and synthesis. The results show that Cloud Kitchen is supported and promoted in 1) politics and 2) laws. That is, the government has measures to help entrepreneurs to invest easier and tax incentives. In addition, the legal challenge is to protect the labor welfare rights of workers and the protection of consumer rights from online food ordering. 3) The economic factors: Cloud Kitchen has the business growth rate of the world growing higher than the rate of the restaurant business. Whereas the economic challenges is the creation of a crowd funding business model (public funding) and a business venture or Venture Capital (VC). 4) Social factors: Consumer behavior has changed and the restaurant supply chain has also changed.  Social challenges that arise are consumer behavior lack of interaction. 5) Environmental factors: Challenges in packaging innovation that are environmentally friendly and taking into account the food safety, hygiene of the food establishment and food Production and food handler, and 6) Technological factors are the development of e-commerce online model, and the technology challenge is the data security issues of food ordering users and using payment via applications (apps). Therefore, Cloud Kitchen was initiated as an alternative and a new way to solve the problem of running a restaurant business in relation to consumer behavior in the era of technological transformation.