The food delivery industry has boomed in recent years, as technology has enabled more and more customers to easily order online, while the Covid pandemic has increased their familiarity with and reliance on ordering in prepared meals to eat at home. This has led to rising demand from delivery-only food businesses for ‘dark kitchens’ (also known as cloud, ghost or virtual kitchens), which are essentially spaces for preparing and fulfilling food delivery orders.
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Virtual Brands, Delivery Platforms & Multi-Branding
Commercial dark kitchens may be operated by online companies and virtual brands with no high street presence, or by established restaurants aiming to broaden their customer base by signing up to online delivery platforms like Just Eat or Uber Eats. Many dark kitchens are multi-branded, with the operator delivering different food brands from one location to target various market segments. The costs involved in setting up and running a dark kitchen are usually relatively low in terms of both rent and staffing, and this has enabled many small and medium-sized companies to enter the UK’s highly competitive food delivery market.
Operators Need Flexibility and Adaptability
Dark kitchens are often located in the suburbs of towns and cities where there is high demand for food order deliveries. A rented dark kitchen may be purpose-built and set up to immediately begin production, or it may be a simple space that the tenant intends to convert into a kitchen that suits their needs. Therefore, prospective tenants normally seek either a fully-equipped dark kitchen they can move into quickly and prepare food in from the outset, or a small or medium-sized basic warehouse or industrial unit that offers adaptability. The latter option is frequently the choice of multi-brand dark kitchen operators with unpredictable requirements and the consequent need for flexibility.
How Legal Advice Can Help When Renting a Dark Kitchen
While legal advice is not a prerequisite for renting a dark kitchen, it can help tenants avoid pitfalls down the line which may seriously impact business operations. Our commercial property solicitors can help prospective tenants with all aspects of dark kitchen lease, including, most importantly, negotiating and agreeing suitable terms with the landlord. We also carry out searches and enquiries to check, for example, the landlord’s title to the property and planning permission for its intended use. The commercial property team at Bartletts can advise and support clients in every aspect of getting a commercial dark kitchen up and running as quickly and efficiently as possible – and with the minimum of fuss.
