The Kitchen is Dead – Long Live the Kitchen
Op-ed to Frank M. Pfaller’s TEDtalk on Ghost Kitchen: Innovation or Craze? and its impact on our environment
Prof. Dr Willy Legrand
In a recent research conducted by McKinsey & Company on Reimagining European restaurants for the next normal, the authors argued that the food and beverage sector must “embrace innovation in their channel strategy, menu offerings, and business model” (Khan et al., 2020). And the 2020 COVID-19 health crisis has triggered a multitude of opportunities to boost innovations in products, services and systems, as crises often do (e.g. Clark, 2020; Rigby, Hollander, 2020; Elk and Berez, 2020). From click and collect channel strategy or made to delivery and meal kits, many restaurant innovations, which have been around already but often operating in a niche segment or with a slow uptake, suddenly became a ‘must have’ simply to remain in business during the months of lockdown.
Ghost kitchens (also labelled as ‘dark or shared kitchens’, ‘delivery-only kitchens’, ‘cloud kitchens’ or ‘virtual kitchens’) is one of those innovations which became, almost overnight, a pillar to food supply in urban environments. In those same urban centers, operating a stand-alone restaurant has become extremely challenging for a multitude of reasons and most notably high operational and financial gearing due to heavy lease agreements, licensing and regulatory requirements and labour costs. The lockdown has exacerbated the situation and laid bare the fragile restaurant foundations with many operators wondering how to stay in business. The situation post-lockdown remains dire, where a 50% occupancy in restaurants is the new ‘100%’, a recent norm due to distancing regulations. So with this in mind, how can one compensate that missing 50% occupancy? Certainly menu pricing, loyalty programmes and off-peak offers are all important topics. Additionally, customer experience such as personalised digital offers or inapp ordering continues to play a very important role in restaurant recovery. However, there are great expectations for digital orders and delivery of out-of-home food with an expected growth rate three times that of in-restaurant sales by 2023 (Steingoltz & Picciola, 2019). Strong from flexibility in changed market conditions, and alongside the already established food trucks and pop-up restaurant, ghost kitchens and virtual restaurants may become a new gastronomy reality, where “the branding and food are real, but the restaurants do not exist elsewhere in the physical world” (Wiener, 2020). With easy order and payment processing, perceived shorter waiting time and along with better packaging that ensures an adequate sensory experience once the food has travelled from the ghost kitchen to one’s own four walls, this seems to be a dream come true for many who ditched home-cooking a long time ago (Hanbury, 2018) but a challenge to traditional restaurant owners (Loizos, 2019).
The challenges are, as in so many cases when innovation disrupts established markets or operating procedures, multi-fold on the sustainability front. Recently, in an article published in the New Yorker, a video made in a mega Ghost Kitchen unit was discussed which “depicted line cooks packed into a windowless warehouse, yelling over the sounds of tablets and phones chiming with order alerts” (Wiener, 2020, para 10). The author concluded that “as in most restaurants, the apparition is for customers; the ghosts are the workers themselves” (Wiener, 2020, para 10). Chefs and cooks may still have work, albeit under difficult conditions, the need for any front staff, from cashier to wait staff and managers, is eliminated with related socio-economic impact in communities. On the other hand, a fleet of drivers and riders are needed to handle food deliveries. However, those gig economy jobs are often precarious with low wages, high workload, issues with personal safety while delivering food and relatively low job satisfaction (Li et al., 2020). Consequently, countries are trying, with mixed results, to implement legislation to improve the rights of those workers (e.g. EU, 2019). On the environmental front, the argument can be made that ghost kitchens ensure an optimal use of real estate by maximising the output per square meter, thus optimising the energy usage for heating, cooling and ventilating space. However, a research conducted by Li, Mirosa and Bremer during the COVID-19 outbreak on the impact of online food delivery platforms on sustainability revealed that the carbon footprint of delivery is in fact high (2020). Additionally, the generation of waste, plastic in particular, is significant.
Packaging waste resulting from food delivery is an environmental hazard. While the ‘fight on single-use plastics’ had shown its first result pre COVID-19 with large hotel chains banning items from rooms and food and beverage outlets, the clock is being reversed at an alarming rate. In China’s mega cities where food delivery has experienced a rapid increase over the past five years, the volume of packaging waste increased from 0.2 million metric tons in 2015 to a staggering 1.5 million tons by 2017, a stunning seven time fold in two years (Song et al., 2018). With the COVID-19 outbreak, the use of disposable single-used plastic has increased on the argument that single use packaging meets higher sanitation standards and is thus more hygienic (Neo, 220). However, there is no scientific consensus on this particular issue and a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in April of 2020 came to the conclusion that if plastic surfaces are not properly cleaned, “the virus can remain viable and infectious in aerosols for hours and on surfaces up to days” (van Doremalen et al., 2020, 1567) suggesting that single use plastics may not be as safe as first thought. In terms of circular approach to waste management, recycling packaging waste is only as good as the availability of recycling facilities in individual countries. Additionally, food delivery packaging is frequently soiled with food residues and thus often discarded in regular trash bins. Depending on the country, municipal waste is either sent to landfills, incinerated or simply dumped or burned illegally. In all cases, the environmental impact is considerable. This is particular worrying since plastics and in particular micro- and nano plastics (i.e. plastics bags and bottle breaking down in tiny fragments too small for the eye) not only have a proven negative impact on the fauna and flora but the latest study presented at the American Chemical Society found that micro- and nanoplastics are detectable in human organs and tissue including lungs, liver and kidneys (ACS, 2020). While scientists are not certain of the health hazards due to plastics making its way into human bodies, “search in wildlife and animal models has linked micro- and nanoplastic exposure to infertility, inflammation and cancer” (ACS, 2020, para 4).
Another waste associated with deliveries from ghost kitchen is spent batteries (thus consigned to waste with a majority being lead-acid batteries) used in electric bikes as well as the energy required to charge electric vehicles. While studies are still scarce on the topic, a research conducted in China found that energy required to charge food delivery vehicles and bikes (with coal as electricity source) plus the energy needed for the treatment of packaging waste resulted in 73.89 Gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2016 alone (Jia et al., 2018). The authors discuss the energy – emission –waste nexus of food deliveries.
The last aspect is related to food waste. Here too, there is scarcity in the scientific literature on the impact of ghost kitchens on food waste management. Arguably a lot of the food waste issues are ‘outsourced’ or ‘externalised’ to the consumers who tend to over purchase while using an app or website to order and consequently discard the uneaten food (Li et al., 2020). There is a counter argument to which ghost kitchens are more efficient at preparing food although here too, supporting evidence is scarce (Li et al., 2020). Food waste is also ‘planned’ via minimum price for free deliveries practice enticing consumers to order more in order to reach that free delivery amount threshold (Li et al., 2020). Another aspect playing a role is the difficulty for consumers to assess the aromas, portion size or the taste while ordering online (li et al., 2020); all those elements play a critical role when dining in a physical restaurant. Some research shows that consumers ordering food deliveries easily disregard food due to poor taste or unexpected large portions (Li et al., 2020). This is not to say that food waste is not an issue in physical restaurants, but it is equally an issue in a ghost kitchen environment.
Despite the issues raised above, off-premise dining is on the rise (NRA, 2019) and ghost kitchens will continue to play a role particularly for a generation of consumers that enjoy the flexibility of consuming food anytime and anywhere. And while it may be difficult for consumers to check on the food provenance when ordering from ghost kitchens, it does not say that transparency cannot be guaranteed. In a world where consumers increasingly value the sustainability of the food, from origins to transformation (Khan et al., 2020) and where health and wellbeing play an important role in food consumption, ghost kitchens’ stance on their sourcing policy, transformation practices and work etiquette should be provided. Food delivery companies must have a clear plan for the implementation of various emission reduction activities and carbon offsetting plans as steps towards carbon neutrality. Governments are called to set the accepted minimum standard on all those topics and consumers have the duty to demand greater transparency.
There is one last aspect not considered in the discussion surrounding ghost kitchens. It is the role assumed by neighbourhood restaurants in creating bonds between members of a community. It is where acquaintances become friends, individuals become partners or professionals strike a deal; all around a table in a safe environment. Stand alone or hotel restaurants are more important than ever. It is only when they are gone that many will understand what is missing.
References
ACS (2020, August 17). Micro- and nanoplastics detectable in human tissues. American Chemical Society Press Release. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2020/august/micro-andnanoplastics-detectable-in-human-tissues.html
Clark, L. (2020). Innovation in a Time of Crisis. Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. https:// www.harvardbusiness.org/innovation-in-a-time-of-crisis/
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