GrabFood launches cloud kitchen for merchant partners

MANILA, Philippines —  “We’re looking to open three more after this,” Grab Philippines country head Brian Cu told reporters during the launch of the first GrabKitchen in Glorietta in Makati.

While the cloud kitchen concept refers to having a kitchen where orders made through online platforms are fulfilled for delivery, GrabKitchen’s first outlet also has in-store dining for six merchants partners: Omakase, Mister Kabab, 24 Chicken, Recovery Food, Frank and Dean, and CoCo Fresh Tea and Juice.

GrabFood head EJ dela Vega said through GrabKitchen, merchant partners could expand their service at lower costs as they no longer have to spend on rental costs which GrabFood would be paying.

In exchange for locating in GrabKitchen, he said GrabFood would be getting a certain percentage of the transactions.

In terms of protection of trade secrets, he said merchant partners need not worry as each would have their own enclosed space within the GrabKitchen site.

Apart from helping merchant partners expand and rely less on foot traffic, he said consumers also benefit from GrabKitchen by being allowed to mix and match orders to the different merchants.

For the upcoming GrabKitchen outlets, he said the number of merchant partners to be served in one site would vary depending on the area’s size.

GrabFood is investing in putting up GrabKitchen outlets in the country amid high growth in the food delivery business.

In the past 12 months, volume of orders through the Grab app have risen 15 times.

GrabKitchen was first launched in Indonesia in 2018.

To date, there are over 50 GrabKitchen branches in Southeast Asia.

Apart from Indonesia and the Philippines, other countries with GrabKitchen outlets are Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore.