Clouds, Foods and Rebels : What's Cooking?
“The Wendy's partners with Rebel Foods to open 250 cloud kitchens in India” – quoted Economic Times on Dec 1, 2020.
And why not? What better than a market, which was valued at more than $160 million last year, & is forecasted to grow at 18% until 2026 – the cloud kitchen market of India?
And what better a partner than a company already boasting of more than 300 cloud kitchens in 35 cities of the country – Rebel Foods?
But was it just the scale of Rebel Foods that attracted the biggest deal from the global quick service restaurant chain, The Wendy’s? What exactly is the synergy between these two brands? Why would a brand like The Wendy’s – a strictly physical restaurant chain – try to enter this nascent cloud-kitchen Indian market? Let’s try to get these answers by slowly demystifying some of the myths related to these ‘ghost’ or ‘dark’ kitchens aka cloud kitchens and how Rebel Foods have already busted them one at a time:
Myth#1: Cloud Kitchens do not require professionals to set it up
With the rise of COVID19, consumer dining behaviours are changing big time and cloud kitchens are going to be the next brand ambassadors of ‘fine-dining in the comfort of your homes’. After Rebel Foods decided to switch to a cloud kitchen model in 2016, its revenues shot up considerably and why not – as the decision altered the store economics of a restaurant by reducing capital investments, taking away prime real estate costs and expensive service staff. However, that does not mean that cloud kitchens do not need professionals to set it up. Cloud kitchens are different than usual businesses, but they are still a business that come with its own teething challenges – and the highly educated duo that runs Rebel Foods now seem to be the perfect combo to fly this cloud empire.
Source: Forbes
Myth#2: Cloud Kitchens limit the scope of portfolio expansion
We list this myth because when we asked our friends to tell us what picture comes to their mind when they think of cloud-kitchens, the most common answer was something like this:
”A small room with 3-4 workers in white chef coats, their hands white with dough, making the rolls/wraps/burgers and passing them on to a toaster/grill in one corner of the room as final step”
Well, Rebel Foods taught us that cloud kitchens are known as kitchens for a reason – you can cook multiple things in them at the same time!
The decision to go ‘all-cloud’ led to a transformation of Rebel Foods from a roll-only brand (Faasos, that is) to a food company that has used technology to churn out multiple brands from the same kitchen. How? The brands you see under the Rebel Foods umbrella were all standalone brands earlier that caught eyes of the young founders of the company. They did not hesitate to embark on an experimental journey with continental foods like pizzas or traditional tastes like biryanis! Buoyed by the success of Behrouz and Oven Story, the founders rolled out a sequence of other food brands, and all of them have managed to scale at a fast clip. Be it morning coffee (Slay Coffee), a healthy lunch (LunchBox), evening chinese snacks (Mandarin Oak) or midnight dessert cravings (Sweet Truth) – Rebel Foods got you covered!
Fun Fact: When Jaydeep Burman (one of the founders of Rebel Foods) first experimented with pizzas under the brand Faasos, it backfired as customers could not relate a roll-brand to a pizza. The move was rectified by christening the same pizza line as ‘Early Trails’, a brand that you know by the name Oven Story today. It is an interesting oven story, isn’t it?
This entrepreneurial spirit has led to the company owning 12 brands now and a platform known as “Rebel Launchers” to spot more passionate food entrepreneurs and bring them under its fold, or cloud. Interestingly, two of these brands have already crossed the ₹100-crore mark in four years.
Myth#3: There is very less scope of technology when it comes to food
Another myth that Rebel Food busted was through its love for playing with food and technology. There are many other cloud kitchen competitors in India, but nowhere will you find a Visual Artificial Intelligence Quality Control Machine to detect size, weight, appearance & temperature of each dish; Robotics-led Smart Fryer which can distinguish between a samosa and a falafel and adjust automatically to the oil temperature & dipping; an Automated Wok that knows how much oil, water or ingredients to dispense in the dish & QR codes on each packaging to detect your chef, his/her body temperature or medical certificates or where exactly was your food cooked! These are just few of the 35 in-house tech products that are developed by the company in 10 different robotics units across its kitchens.
Myth#4: Cloud kitchens compete with Swiggy/Zomato
This is by far the greatest myth associated with the cloud kitchens. If we talk of Rebel Foods, the case in point, they are not competing with Swiggy/Zomato but with QSR (Quick Service Restaurants) like McDonalds or Domino’s. Swiggy/Zomato are in-fact the missing pieces of the puzzle to a complete customer experience. While Rebel Foods take care of the food quality, Swiggy/Zomato take care of efficient food delivery.
We are a generation with cash in pounds and time in pennies. A generation which prefers to grab a quick-bite to satiate the hunger by paying some extra bucks, rather than spending time in the kitchen after a long work-day. While western QSR chains are puffing-up with their cheese-loaded options, Rebel Foods is paving the way to “healthy” quick-bites – filling a gap which was earlier widening in an uncontrolled manner. Yes, it is playing in a food-tech space, & is the third largest food-tech company in India, but its real competitors are the likes of Burger King and Dominos. And a partnership with The Wendy’s amidst this chaos seem like an open and bold statement by Rebel Foods – It is here to change the rules of QSR.
Considering that this will add around 250 Wendy’s Indian restaurants to the 3000+ internet restaurants list of Rebel Foods, this doesn’t seem like a far-fetched partnership. Don’t forget how The Wendy’s will get access to PAN India customers along with the local know-how – which means they get closer to their customers, get access to existing customer base of Rebel Foods and they do not have to spend any more money in research of the strategic locations to set up restaurants!
Whether it is focusing on the quality control for food, foraying into new food genres, or expanding the footprint in more cities – Rebel Foods have always moved ahead with calculated steps – yes, some risks are involved in every new venture, but the Rebels made sure that it was worth their time. By busting the myths around cloud-kitchens to building a food empire that has touched almost all of us today (whether it is through their rolls or biryanis or chocolate dips) – no wonder Rebel Foods wears the crown of being the largest internet restaurant company in the world.
By: Anmol Gupta | Isha Garg