‘Cloud Kitchen’ a Future Trend & New Business Opportunity for Cambodia, say Experts

• Sommana Yan
• 10 May 2021
• Local News
• 2976 Views

Real estate experts have forecast that the ‘Cloud Kitchen’ business model will become a future trend and potential investment opportunity in Cambodia, especially given recent lockdowns and the surge in COVID community outbreaks.

The topic was discussed at a joint online conference between Pointer CEO Nguon Chhayleang and International Property Advisor (Singapore) Ku Swee Yong last weekend.

Cloud Kitchen is a restaurant that provides only a delivery service from online orders, without any physical store for dining in.

According to both CEOs, this model of business is very suitable in such circumstances due to the high demand for online food delivery service. As no one knows when the COVID-19 pandemic will end, this is the right time to start the Cloud Kitchen.

Another advantage of Cloud Kitchen is that the restaurant owner does not have to pay rent for the physical restaurant or service staff. Besides, since most of the production is large-scale or factory-made, the production cost could be lower than conventional restaurants.

Likewise, Cloud Kitchen offers a high degree of flexibility to owners as they can have more than one restaurant online but using the same kitchen.

For example, a restaurateur who owns a Thai food cloud-kitchen restaurant can start offering Korean food as well. But instead of adding Korean food to the current menu, the owner can begin a brand.

The reason to start a new brand instead of introducing new items on the same menu is that customers prefer to order from a different restaurant if they think it specialises in that particular cuisine.

Given these factors benefits, Mr Chahyleang and Mr Yong predicted that such a business model will gain momentum in the future.

Mr Yong said that this type of business already has already been operating in Cambodia, mostly to supply food to hotels, airlines, and a small amount of company staff. However, the market is quite limited.

“Therefore, the market still has many opportunities for new entrants, both large and small scale. For example, in addition to selling online with regular customers, you can offer lunch supply to employees of large companies with thousands of employees. These are all opportunity,” he added.

• Analysis
• Business and Market