Technology

Is network inadequacy haunting your ghost kitchen?

Restaurant brands have taken to ghost kitchens as a brand growth strategy like a dog to a bone, but in some cases these same brands are being bitten by network inefficiencies.

Photo: iStock.

June 30, 2021 by Jeff Bradbury — Sr. Director, Marketing, Hughes

The COVID-19 pandemic created a sudden, seismic shift in the restaurant business toward carryout and delivery, followed shortly thereafter by dramatic growth in the creation of ghost kitchens. Now, the ghost kitchen model seems here to stay, with Technomic estimating a 25% per year growth in U.S. sales in that sector over the next five years. That, in turn, is expected to generate nearly $300 million in annual sales.

Understandably, operators are eager to adopt this new revenue model. But, before jumping into the ghost kitchen business, it's important to fully understand that this approach presents complex operational challenges, along with noting that an agile, dependable network that supports scalability complexity and security is key to their success.

Multi-brand means multi-cloud

The scalability of ghost kitchens is a major draw for operators. Without front-of-house operations, ghost kitchen concepts operate a higher volume than full-service restaurants. Some locations may even be able to fill orders from multiple brands simultaneously, or to offer different brand menus during different dayparts.

This kind of flexibility and scalability carries significant operational impacts. Shifting between brands and menus creates more complexity in preparation, food inventory management, food safety oversight and changeout of culinary tools and practices (like cook tops or oven temperatures) and packaging. For each brand represented, a ghost kitchen will produce different products, each with specific packaging needs and requirements for keeping food fresh and customer-ready, while awaiting pick-up.

In these circumstances, network agility is critical. Operationally, restaurants require access to different systems at different times of day, or even potentially at different locations within the kitchen. Further, each brand operates from a different data or cloud source.

Often, ghost kitchen systems employ artificial intelligence from the cloud to monitor and maintain food quality from preparation through delivery. An efficient network for a ghost kitchen must connect to dozens of different data sources and cloud services to keep all systems plugged in and operating continuously. Any network disruption can compromise order quality as well as customer experience.

The best network for an efficient ghost kitchen is designed for the cloud, allowing operators to connect easily to new services, drop old ones and adopt APIs (software that allows apps to inter-communicate) and other open standards to connect data across systems and platforms. To eliminate latency issues or delays and provide optimized connectivity, direct access to cloud services is critical.

Supporting complex communications

Anyone who's witnessed a restaurant when it's busy with takeout and delivery orders knows how chaotic such situations can be. Now, imagine that type of scene, only this time with five times the volume of food and at least twice as many delivery services, and you will begin to see the challenge ghost kitchens face in handling orders and then handing them off for delivery. This is why the proper input of customer orders into ghost kitchen ticketing systems is so reliant on the corresponding network's ability to quickly decode and organize the vast amounts of complex, incoming information.

Ghost kitchens constantly receive incoming orders from multiple platforms, with the more brands a ghost kitchen represents making the whole process even more complex. Each platform being used has its own integrations and sequencing processes to ensure orders are ticketed properly and that the food items involved in each order are prepared together.

Additionally, the customer's food order is just one piece of information that operators receive in these instances. There is also applicable contact information, loyalty data or even — if the kitchen takes orders directly — credit card information. Compounding these challenges is the fact that order information from a number of third-party systems comes from different cloud or data center resources, each in their own formats with unique sequencing and reference numbers.

Of course, organizing incoming orders is only half of the equation — the network also has to support efficient and traceable hand-off and delivery of the food to customers. That in turn, entails communication with delivery drivers to confirm an order is ready, as well as identifying the order to the driver and providing instructions for pick-p.

Organizing and creating some manner of order to this potential chaos of needs and functions are many and varied. Kitchens can place orders on a series of shelves, designated by brand. Order specifics can be relayed to drivers through automated text messaging on in-app functions. Digital signage can help by designating pickup areas. But, whatever option an operator chooses, the network must be up to the task.

Any solution for this kind of complexity requires two-way communications to the same third-party systems that brought the order in to the ghost kitchen in the first place. Only a truly robust network can handle the volume and variety of interactions among ordering platforms, customers and delivery workers, while simultaneously managing the many cloud, platform and resource connections required. In short, a reliable, high-performing network is the only option that can provide the agility needed to tie all these systems together, while adjusting to the inevitable system changes and tool integrations that form an ecosystem of platforms optimized for efficiency.

Protecting sensitive data

The multiple cloud connections required for operation of a ghost kitchen — while efficient and convenient — also present a large attack surface, elevating security breach concern. Communication between customers, ghost kitchen operators and third-party ordering platforms include sensitive data, such as payment information and other personally identifiable data like home addresses. Healthy network security is critical to protect this data, maintain customer trust and prevent costly downtime from system failures triggered by malware or other attacks.

The right network to support a ghost kitchen will integrate critical security features, from firewalls to cloud delivered security capabilities. A software-defined wide area network — often referred to as SD-WAN — can secure each cloud service via point-to-point encryption. With zero trust network access, only verified business users or system can access the ghost kitchen, securing both the user and cloud service sides of the connection.

The rapidly changing landscape of customer expectation and priorities is redefining the very idea of the restaurant experience. As operators work to keep up with changing trends, they will face increasingly complicated operational challenges. An agile and dependable network that supports scalability, complexity and security will be the foundation of success now and as ghost kitchen systems and technologies evolve.

About Jeff Bradbury

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Jeff is currently Senior Marketing Director at Hughes, a leading provider of fully managed SD-WAN and digital media services dedicated to transforming distributed organizations into better-connected, customer-focused enterprises. In this role, Jeff works across markets to understand customer needs, technology adoption trends, and the direction of digital transformation to ensure Hughes is ready with the solutions customers need to meet their business goals.

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