The rise of the dark kitchen trend in SA
The ‘dark kitchen’ trend is gathering pace locally. And no, we don’t mean a dish served cold — la Eskom. Richard Holmes found out more
The food delivery business is booming. Blame it on the lockdown or us simply being too lazy to leave the house in search of sustenance, but the global market for online food delivery services is set to top $110bn this year. And while SA accounts for just a fraction of that — about $524m, according to research group Statista — it’s a market that is growing even while the local economy contracts.
Driving that growth is the boom in so-called dark kitchens: centralised production spaces hosting multiple "restaurants" which rely purely on online orders, largely through third-party mobile platforms such as Uber Eats, Mr D, OrderIn and, most recently, Bolt Food...
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