
Farm to Table? More Like Ghost Kitchen to Sofa - ENOTTY
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/24/style/ghost-kitchen-food-delivery.html
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leggomylibro
There are ads for these GrubDash services all over the city I used to live in.

They say things like, "opt in-side!" and, "never leave your couch!"

It's gosh-darned dystopian to my eyes, but the phrases are couched as positive
encouragements to improve your life.

I've seen a lot of things over the past few years which make me think about
how we are living in the future which we feared more than the one which we
hoped for. But these "Uber for food" apps really take the cake. And most
people don't seem to care about how the sausage is made, so long as they get
their prepared meal without friction.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The only change I see is efficiencies gained by sharing kitchen and driver
resources. Otherwise, on the buyer’s side, nothing is changing as food
delivery has existed for quite some time.

~~~
mc32
To be fair scale and penetration are significant measures. Companies might
have had catered lunches from time to time but now if they don’t have on site
kitchens they facilitate their employees to order from these operations.

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alexmingoia
This YouTuber tried selling Microwave meals on Deliveroo (spoiler: Deliveroo
let them without inspection, and someone bought it!):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k47u9tduwb8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k47u9tduwb8)

~~~
yellowapple
Less morbidly/cynically, I wonder if this business model could extend to, say,
the little old lady who likes baking pies and wouldn't mind some extra dough
for her dough?

There's already this sort of market popping up on e.g. Facebook, but it
revolves around pickup instead of delivery; combine it with a delivery network
like those provided by these food delivery apps and you've got a killer recipe
(pun intended) for one hell of a business model.

I'd imagine the big hurdle would be health code compliance, though.

~~~
erichurkman
There was a big push in California over the past few years to build out
regulatory structure for this. They even passed a bill [0] (NPR article) to
enable it -- though they explicitly carved out third party delivery services.

[0]
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/01/17/685626391/se...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/01/17/685626391/selling-
food-from-your-kitchen-is-legal-in-california-but-theres-a-catch)

~~~
anfilt
Honestly, more states need cottage food laws. I know Washington and Idaho, and
minosotta for instance have what are called cottage food laws to allow such
food. Certainly, other states I am missing, but I think that more states
should have them.

Less Strict (Paper work not required but recommended)
[https://cdhd.idaho.gov/pdfs/food/CottageFoodsFAQ.pdf](https://cdhd.idaho.gov/pdfs/food/CottageFoodsFAQ.pdf)

Paper Work Still Required [https://agr.wa.gov/departments/food-safety/food-
safety/cotta...](https://agr.wa.gov/departments/food-safety/food-
safety/cottage-food)

-Edit- I do find it funny that the NPR article calls the bill "the first of its kind in the country". Washington (although much stricter than other states), and Idaho have allowed it for quite some time. Idaho even longer before being formally codified.

~~~
erichurkman
I think the distinction in California was that they are trying to broaden the
definition of cottage foods. The Idaho link you gave is similar to what
California had before -- generally non-perishable, temperature-safe foods
(bread, jam, nut mixes, etc). California has allowed those for years. The new
law was an attempt to broaden what home cooks could prepare and sell.

~~~
anfilt
I just looked at the text of the bill you mentioned and yea it does go much
further.

Although, it appears to allow third party websites and apps to process sales.
Although such services must keep track of food safety complaints for home
kitchen and if more than three report them.

However, there are restrictions on who can deliver food. Aka only family
members or employee of the operation. So that pretty much makes someone
operating as such unable to use delivery serivces。

Although, i dont see anything stopping a bread baker or some who produces low
risk food from using such services.

also not legal advice.

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dang
Related from 3 weeks ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21722814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21722814)

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kazinator
Ghost kitchens are nothing new, because prepared meals that cannot be bought
from the kitchen by retail consumers predate the "internet age". For instance,
who does the article author think produces airline food?

~~~
zer00eyz
The legal version of this is called a commissary kitchen (see:
[https://www.webstaurantstore.com/article/259/commissary-
kitc...](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/article/259/commissary-
kitchens.html) )

They have been around for a long time. Not every commercial kitchen is open to
the public on a day to day basis, some aren't open to the public at all
(airline food).

Retail space is expensive, because it is designed to attract foot traffic (or
car traffic). If your not trying to accommodate the general public (seating is
an expensive use of square footage), you could save a LOT of money.

I suspect that the placement and use of commissary kitchens is going to be a
big step in the "food truck" movement. If you can be "mobile" and do
"delivery" it poses a great way to "grow" your business.

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standardUser
I've seen these all over delivery websites in SF. I've so far refused to order
because a) I can't look up multiple review sources to get a feel for their
quality/reputation and b) I don't know their physical location, which matters
a lot for delivery times and freshness in a congested city like SF.

~~~
azinman2
The idea of ghost kitchens is that they’re located near you. The same
“restaurant” may have multiple ghost kitchens they operate inside of.

~~~
La1n
But that makes it difficult to find fair reviews, different kitchens might
produce different quality food.

~~~
skyyler
Take your idea here a step further and realise that even reviews can't prepare
you for when the line cook is having a shitty day. Every plate that comes out
of a kitchen is different. When two different locations are using the same
technique and the same ingredients, there's not some magical quality about the
different location that is going to alter the quality of the food.

Unless it's a steakhouse that specialises in dry aged steaks.

Then there might be something in the air.

~~~
HaloZero
I mean, the quality of the restaurant is control in how their staff functions
too. Yes there is always a chance for a mistake but higher end restaurants
have (hopefully) better staff that do a better job.

I believe Michelin Stars reviewers have to visit a restaurant multiple times
and rate on consistency for that reason (though this is not captured in Yelp
reviews or google reviews)

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baddox
On Uber Eats in SF I recently noticed two chicken restaurants with very
similar names operating at the same address. I assume these are ghost
kitchens. Screenshots:
[https://twitter.com/baddox/status/1207786177119444992](https://twitter.com/baddox/status/1207786177119444992)

~~~
masonic
I like how different their ratings are.

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bardworx
For anyone interested in the myriad of terms, here's a good overview:
[https://thespoon.tech/market-map-ghost-kitchens-
in-2019/?mc_...](https://thespoon.tech/market-map-ghost-kitchens-
in-2019/?mc_cid=d3b8e88735&mc_eid=e53f8b6f09)

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shay_ker
Article is paywalled, so I can't dig into what they're saying, but the truth
is ghost/commissary kitchens are going to be hugely impactful. For decades,
commissary kitchens were used for high-density cities like NYC & Chicago,
since real estate is a premium and it's easier to do food prep somewhere
cheaper beforehand and then have workers just assemble meals day of.

Deliveroo is ahead of the curve on this in EU. Obviously, like people
mentioned, a lot of tough problems to solve at scale (health issues, namely),
but if they do it well they might be able to build a similar model in the US
or elsewhere. Uber is also investing strongly in commissary kitchens, as well
as Travis building Cloud Kitchens.

The efficiencies gained from commissary kitchens are very similar to
efficiencies you see from hawker stalls & local markets around East,
Southeast, and South Asia. There you can get great food at a fraction of the
cost you'd pay elsewhere. It's so cheap that some people never cook (this is
esp. common in China, I believe). Or, they buy mostly-assembled foods, and
then do just enough prep to serve it at home.

Ultimately, the food that we'd get would be better, because restaurants will
stop caring about running a retail location and just care about making great
food. Restaurant branding/marketing will become more important too.

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m463
Isn't Zuul the gatekeeper?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ghostbusters_character...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ghostbusters_characters#Zuul_and_Vinz_Clortho)

I can't imagine the choice of name was unintentional.

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peter303
These services are currently highly subsidized by venture capital. I wonder
what happens when these services have to make a profit.

~~~
shay_ker
GrubHub & Uber are both public companies at this point. So at the minimum,
they're subsidized by those who buy their stock, but clearly they're
reinvesting revenue into the business.

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darkr
I’ll bet they don’t even know what “farm-to-table” means.

