Fruitas to launch new “cloud kitchen” venture, Nube Kuxina
Fruitas Holdings [FRUIT 1.19 2.59%] [link] announced yesterday that it will launch a cloud kitchen venture called “Nube Kuxina”.
FRUIT believes this venture will allow the company to efficiently reach more customers with a wider array of in-house and third-party products.
This venture is a continuation of FRUIT’s pivot away from its original, siloed, physical food kiosk business model, and toward something that is adapted to the pandemic-era/post-COVID change in customer behavior and the associated rise in delivery app usage.
A “cloud kitchen” is where a company uses a central commissary to produce dishes for multiple brands, which are then delivered directly to customers without the need of a retail storefront.
Instead of developing individual kiosks for each of its brands (Babot’s Farm, Buko Loco, Buko ni Fruitas, De Original Jamaican Pattie, Johnn Lemon, Juice Avenue, Black Pearl, Friends Fries, The Mango Farm, 7,107 Halo Halo Islands, Tea Rex, Kuxina, SHOU La Mien Hand-Pulled Noodles, Sabroso Lechon, Soy & Bean, Ling Nam, etc), the company builds a large central commissary to produce dishes for each of the brands as advertised on its own delivery app and the various third-party delivery apps that dominate the space.
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Cloud kitchens are a tantalizing thought experiment that question some of the traditional foundations of the restaurant business model.
They’re incredibly popular in India, where many large and not-so-large brands have moved into delivery-only configurations around this cloud kitchen concept.
On the one hand, it might be refreshing to receive delivered food from a source that specializes entirely in the delivered food game.
I can’t count the number of times that I’ve ordered something for delivery (like tacos from Pobla), only to receive a completely mangled dish in crappy packaging, held together loosely with cello tape, dripping random oily sauces all over the place.
On the other hand, though, it makes sense to me when known brands move from the physical space to the digital space, but it feels less intuitive for brands that I’ve never experienced before “in real life”.
Cloud kitchens feel like a great way to get something that I already know, and from that perspective, FRUIT’s collection of in-house and well-known brands fits this very well.
Will FRUIT offer its cloud kitchen capabilities, as a service, to other large and small brands that lack the capacity to operate a commissary?
Feels like the first step in a move by FRUIT to become the Amazon of branded food delivery in the Philippines.
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Merkado Barkada's opinions are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any particular stock. These daily articles are not updated with new information, so each investor must do his or her own due diligence before trading, as the facts and figures in each particular article may have changed.
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