Expert Post: Four Reasons to Consider a Virtual Kitchen – Now

Even before COVID-19, the food delivery industry was expected to grow from $43 billion in 2017 to $467 billion in 2025 – now it's expected to be $1 trillion by 2030. In fact, according to The Washington Post, it’s one of the few areas in the restaurant industry seeing growth right now. According to the most recent data published by Yelp, 26,000 restaurants have permanently closed due to COVID-19. In Colorado alone, 62% of Colorado restaurants say they will be forced to consider closing permanently in the next six months under current or worsened conditions, according to the Colorado Restaurant Association.

However, many of the food industry problems that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, have been problems for years: high rent, rising labor costs, razor thin margins, and high overhead costs.  Restaurants must overcome many challenges to stay afloat, and work even harder to become successful:

To combat these problems, many European countries, as well as China, India, the Middle East and other regions of the world, have been leveraging “virtual kitchens,” delivery-only concepts with no physical dine-in space, for years. The U.S., though late to the game, is seeing an explosion in these types of kitchens, even expecting to “dominate the global market” by 2027.

Virtual kitchens, with their low barriers to entry and focus on streamlined delivery, are a smart and inexpensive way to get food into customers’ hands. We’ve detailed four reasons why a virtual kitchen could be the smartest move during these challenging times: