2023-07-23 12:34:14
On Al Fadila Avenue in Rabat is a restaurant like no other. Here, no tables, no chairs, no waiters either. In fact, no customer has ever frequented the place. We are in one of the biggest dark kitchens in Morocco “La cantine Family”.
This new model of 2.0 restaurants, totally dedicated to home delivery of meals, is now living its golden age. According to Statista, the global home meal delivery market grew by 27% in 2020 and is expected to generate revenues of nearly $182 billion by 2024. Following the lockdown and new restaurant trends that are increasingly done online, the concept of ghost kitchens in Morocco is inspiring several young entrepreneurs.
This is the case of Brahim Cheikh Lahlou. As a child, he was introduced to cooking by his mother. “My passion for culinary art began at a young age. I remember those moments of happiness that I shared with my mom in the kitchen when I was little. It was very amusing”, remembers Brahim, moved. “I had the opportunity to travel to several countries, which made me discover new flavors and greatly nourished my gastronomic culture”, he confides to us.
After graduating from the Higher Institute of Management in Paris, the young laureate decided in 2014 to return to his country to open his first restaurant in Casablanca, “La Cantine”, which was initially a classic restaurant, more precisely a salad bar. “The concept of ‘healthy food’ was a great success, especially since it was new in Morocco. I opened four other restaurants of the same brand”, he underlines. In 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic turned restaurant paradigms upside down and caused the young entrepreneur to change his model, opening a dark kitchen in Casablanca. “Since then, I have focused on the delivery model.
The idea of having a single kitchen, the stock at my side, the turnover entering a single point of sale, immediately appealed to me”, he enthuses. This year, Brahim is launching a promising new “ghost kitchen” project in Rabat.
More than a trend
In this kitchen laboratory with an area of 700 m2, fitted out and perfectly equipped, it’s a bit like being in a beehive. Chefs meet. They get down to preparing different culinary specialties that are then delivered to customers who no longer need to travel. Healthy cuisine, dishes combining Japanese and Peruvian flavors, other Indochinese, burgers, pastries.
All from the same kitchen. “You just need to call a single number to order several specialties and cuisines at the same time,” says Oussama El Bouanani, chef specializing in healthy food at the “La cantine Family” group, noting that the project gives young graduates the opportunity to benefit from solid training in the field. “I try to share with them everything I learned during my 13 years of experience in the field,” he continues. Brahim declares to be “very happy to be able to set up his new project which employs more than forty people.
Five chefs, five sub-chefs, 15 party chefs, a few clerks and four delivery men”. In relation to its operation, this dark kitchen has different ways of working. “People call directly by phone or place their orders on our own platform. Otherwise, we call on external service providers like Glovo and JumiaFood”, specifies the young entrepreneur, who points out that the commissions charged by order aggregators remain very high and can go up to 35% per order. “Once the order is received, the chefs prepare the dish, each in their own specialty. Thereafter, the dispatcher comes to collect all the orders, to give them to the deliveryman who sends them to the customers”, continues Brahim, who aims to extend his concept to other cities of the Kingdom.
Advantages and limitations
This virtual restaurant model excludes the fixed costs of a storefront restaurant. All it takes is having a professional kitchen and focusing on meal preparation and delivery, which positively impacts financial performance. In addition, a dark kitchen does not require investing in too expensive spaces to expand.
The premises are located in areas where rents are low. Another advantage of ghost restaurants is the possibility of having several strings to their bow. They make it possible to offer different specialties, diversify the offer and serve different types of customers simultaneously in order to boost sales and reach a wider clientele.
Despite its many advantages from an economic point of view, a dark kitchen requires a significant marketing investment. To compensate for the lack of a physical presence of the customer, it is essential to invest in digital and to work as much as possible on the digital presence of the cloud kitchen, through the creation of a neat website, the good referencing of the brand on search engines and a strong presence on social networks.
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