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I totally agree in theory, in the same way I agree that Amazon delivering everything from a nearby warehouse is far more optimal than having thousands of small

by mtrovo 1y ago

I totally agree in theory, in the same way I agree that Amazon delivering everything from a nearby warehouse is far more optimal than having thousands of small bookshops or random shops in prime locations. I think that's the main vision behind Travis Kalanick's CloudKitchens since he left Uber. You could order food prep for your week from a choice of menus, and the food would be prepared in an industrial kitchen for you and thousands of other people around you. It's basically restaurant-quality food that you can eat at home and isn't frozen. Unfortunately for the meal prep market, I believe the break-even point for scale is much more difficult to achieve. Food is like hardware but with a much shorter end-of-life. You would need consistency in ordering to avoid excess spoilage and to operate at scale within small geographical pockets to make the delivery worthwhile. I really believe this could work with the right demographics and in the right geography, it's just much harder than simply delivering takeaways.

to11mtm 1y ago
FWIW There's a local regional chain that does in fact operate in a way similar to what you describe with CloudKitchens. The main difference is that in practice, you go to the store and pick up meals for the next 2-3 days (I'm fine with this FWIW) and then you select meals (this is where it fell apart, often the 'good stuff' that I could eat with my diet wasn't available). The overall quality after microwaving per instructions was 'like you got a local restaurant dish but it tasted better than if you reheated that'. Ironically, I actually appreciated it overall, and if nothing else it was really good portion control for myself and my partner. They were healthy meals with a proper portion for a normal adult, and frankly comparing said portion vs cost to 'leftovers' from a restaurant I think it was a... not bad value prop. Our only problem was the aforementioned 'not having the stuff that was gluten free and not overly bland in stock enough'. I think the other problem is the sort of wool over everyone's eyes, where at-home meal prep for the week can be extremely simple so long as you've got a good process to follow and are willing to make various compromises.

by mtrovo 1y ago

to11mtm 1y ago

FWIW There's a local regional chain that does in fact operate in a way similar to what you describe with CloudKitchens. The main difference is that in practice, you go to the store and pick up meals for the next 2-3 days (I'm fine with this FWIW) and then you select meals (this is where it fell apart, often the 'good stuff' that I could eat with my diet wasn't available). The overall quality after microwaving per instructions was 'like you got a local restaurant dish but it tasted better than if you reheated that'. Ironically, I actually appreciated it overall, and if nothing else it was really good portion control for myself and my partner. They were healthy meals with a proper portion for a normal adult, and frankly comparing said portion vs cost to 'leftovers' from a restaurant I think it was a... not bad value prop. Our only problem was the aforementioned 'not having the stuff that was gluten free and not overly bland in stock enough'. I think the other problem is the sort of wool over everyone's eyes, where at-home meal prep for the week can be extremely simple so long as you've got a good process to follow and are willing to make various compromises.