Everything is ghostly: what a dark kitchen is and how a ready-to-eat food delivery service works

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Modern Russians are increasingly resorting to the services of delivery of ready-made food. There are several rational reasons for this. Delivery allows you not only to save time for more important things, but also to eat healthy and varied food every day. And today many dark kitchens fully cover the need for three meals a day with the help of extensive product lines. Izvestia visited one of such production facilities and found out how foodtech brand Dostaevsky builds a safe production process, what dishes are most often ordered by Russians and how artificial intelligence will control the quality of food in the near future. More about how food is actually prepared in delivery services - in the material "Izvestia"

What is dark kitchen production

Dark kitchen, also known as "ghost kitchen" or "takeaway kitchen", is an institution that prepares food only for delivery. Unlike restaurants and cafes, this format of production does not imply the presence of a traditional hall for visitors and the possibility of self-delivery of dishes.

Orders are made online - in an app, on the website or through delivery platforms, as well as through a call center. Among the main advantages of this business model, experts emphasize:

• low operating costs relative to a restaurant - savings due to the absence of the need to rent a room with a hall for visitors and the maintenance of a staff of waiters, administrators and other service personnel, but despite all the pluses, this format needs a high level of automation, IT solutions and other things;
• light scaling. Chain restaurants have a harder time than those without branded signage;
• more elaborate analytics. Since sales are made remotely, it is possible to more accurately assess the effectiveness of online advertising and the popularity of a particular position.

However, such businesses cannot provide the emotions and sensations that customers come to restaurants for. Delivery, as a rule, choose those who want to quickly satisfy hunger or provide food for guests of the event, without spending a lot of time on cooking, or to please themselves, arrange a romantic dinner or just lazy.

Way of ordering: features of the device

Today "Dostaevsky" is a foodtech brand (from food - food and technologies - technologies) of the federal level, working in the format of dark kitchen. This status was acquired after the development of the IT platform Dostavisor for the activity. This system controls the whole cycle of orders production, combining applications and web-interfaces for employees and customers.

The smart platform consists of four elements:

• web interface for logisticians;
• mobile interface for cooks and chefs;
• mobile application for couriers.

The application of this program also allows to manage the staff in offline mode, promptly tracking all stages of production. The whole process begins with the goods acceptance zone, where the quality of raw materials brought by suppliers is checked. Then the products are distributed to four storage areas - a freezer, a cold room, a vegetable room and a dry warehouse. Each of them is equipped with special indicators to control the necessary temperature and humidity.

After that, the raw material enters the preparatory shop, where processing, cutting or mixing of ingredients takes place. Blanks are formed on tables specially designed for this purpose, over each of which hang memos - technological maps. According to Alena Zhorova, Dostaevsky's development director, 3-5 times a month all the kitchens are internally inspected for compliance with sanitary and other norms. This allows for better control over production safety. "We require from all employees sanitary books, make sure they wear special clothes, separate the flow of products by degree of contamination. twice a day the kitchen is disinfected, and, of course, strictly observed commodity neighborhood" , - emphasizes Alena Zhorova.

Then begins the most responsible stage - the assembly of the order. As soon as the client pays for the selected items, the chef on the electronic tablet shows the composition of the order. The assembly is carried out in the minimum time. For example, pizza is prepared in six minutes, wok - in 3-4 minutes, and the most popular position rolls "Philadelphia" - just two minutes. The finished order is placed in a numbered box, from where it will have to be picked up by a courier for prompt delivery.

Going offline: development prospects

Next year "Dostaevsky" has set itself several major goals. First of all, the service plans to take important steps to become an international food delivery brand in the future and enter the top five leaders in terms of market capitalization.

The food delivery market suffers from a lack of staff, which is quickly reflected through increased delivery times. To solve this, the service is going to improve customer support and make artificial intelligence part of production. Alyona Zhorova noted that at the moment customers in the market most often have complaints about delivery and the appearance of food. The service delivers an order from 45 minutes, but in large cities this time can increase significantly due to the high workload of cooks during peak hours. The brand plans to solve this problem with the help of push notifications, which will promptly inform consumers, demonstrating care about the client, as well as with the active development of the franchise network.

The second problem of the foodtech market is the appearance of the order.

Customers choose the products of "Dostaevsky" due to the optimal ratio of price and quality. A large portion of rolls "Philadelphia" weighing 280 g, the company sells for 619 rubles, while the price of a similar position in Moscow competitors starts from 800 rubles. In order to avoid product defects at all stages of production, Dostaevsky service decided to introduce artificial intelligence into production. The technology will work as follows: a special program will load images of goods, based on which there will be an automatic evaluation of sent photofixations with images of food, which were made by chefs immediately before sending the order. Moreover, if the program detects a defect at the very beginning, the order cannot be sent. The cook will have to cook it again, make a photo and get the "approval" of the artificial intelligence.

In addition to the above innovations, the delivery service "Dostaevsky" plans to enter the offline market of catering. This will close the emotional needs of customers - the need to relax in a special atmosphere of the institution, and also strengthen trust in the brand, because visitors will finally be able to find out who prepares their favorite dishes for them.