VIRTUAL BRANDS
Yet, at the same time, it is vital to ensure your product is designed with delivery in mind. “You need to have a thoughtful menu that delivers well,” says Schumaker. He advises operators to consider each stage of the delivery cycle when designing the menu. Restricted menus, like the aptly named It’s Just Wings and the highly successful delivery- only chain MrBeast Burger demonstrate the impact of doing one thing well. “The second thing is thinking through
digital marketing,” adds Sandland. “If you’re operating on third-party platforms, you have to be able to master them. That means optimizing everything, from how you name your brand to the types of promotions you run to your settings in the back end.”
Digital solutions are served For companies that don’t already have the digital marketing and third-party skills to capitalize on this opportunity, specialist digital brands are off ering innovative solutions ready for integration. These include Nextbite, the virtual restaurant concept; Franklin Junction, which ‘matches’ host kitchens with digital concepts; and Wow Bao, whose menu is now available in over 500 locations across the US.
“These models are changing and
evolving,” says Schumaker. “There’s a million ways to do this and there’s still a ton of experimentation going on.” For foodservice operators, the rise of virtual kitchens and
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digital brands has opened the door to a completely new way of understanding their infrastructure, capacity and potential. “What off -premise and digital have
done for restaurants is move restaurant capacity from the idea of how many tables can we turn to how many meals can we put out of our kitchen,” says Sandland. “Step one is knowing what your capacity is and what you could do to increase it.” As restaurateurs make this conceptual shift and begin to rethink what’s possible, Schumaker predicts ongoing innovation and experimentation. “With traditional food courts in malls, we’ve seen a handful of examples where those have turned into virtual kitchen concepts with fi ve or eight operators doing diff erent foods but sending them in one delivery vehicle. I think that’s the second wave of virtual kitchens,” he says. “This is going to be ever-shifting. Now,
with restaurants reopening, there’s going to be a turbulent pendulum [between dining in and taking out]. It’s a volatile time and probably will be for the next three to fi ve years at least. Digital brands can solidify their value in the economy for the long term.” Kitchens and restaurant brands are rich in latent opportunity, and consumers are more primed for digital adoption than ever before. Operators that get it right can reap huge rewards. “Early adoption is over, proof of concept is over,” says Schumaker. “This is a macro trend now, not a micro trend.”
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