Running several brands from one cloud kitchen

Why several brands

A delivery-only kitchen has no shop front to fill, so one team and one set of equipment can cook for more than one brand: a burger brand, a bowls brand, a dessert brand. Each brand has its own name and menu for guests, and they share the cooks, the stoves and the store room.

That only pays if the brands share more than the kitchen. Before you add a brand, ask:

• Does it share ingredients with the brands you already run? A brand that needs its own perishable stock adds waste.
• Does it share stations? A brand that needs a new piece of equipment, or ties up the fryer at the busiest hour, slows everything else.
• Does it fill a different hour or a different appetite? Two brands that peak at the same time compete for the same cooks.

Menus that share a store room

Design each brand's menu around a shared core of ingredients and prepared items: sauces, proteins, bases. A good test: list every ingredient across all menus, and mark the ones used by only one dish. Those are your waste risks — replace them, or give them more than one use.

Keep each menu short at first. A cloud kitchen's speed comes from cooks who know every dish by heart.

Stations, not brands

Organise the kitchen by station — grill, fryer, wok, cold, desserts, packing — not by brand. An order from any brand is split into the parts each station makes, and each station sees only its own work. The packing station brings the parts together and checks the order against the ticket.

Late orders are the enemy of delivery ratings. Whatever you use — paper tickets or a kitchen screen — make sure the age of each order is visible at a glance.

Packaging and labels

Each brand has its own packaging, stickers and inserts. Keep them at the packing station, sorted by brand, and add packaging to each dish's cost: a box, a lid, a bag and a sticker can matter as much as an ingredient. Our food cost guide shows how to include them.

Orders from several places

A cloud kitchen often takes orders from more than one place: its own phone line or website, and one or more delivery platforms. Whatever the source, each order should reach the right stations once, carry its brand and its source, and be recorded with its price so your reports match the payouts you receive.

Keep each brand's numbers apart

You need to know whether each brand earns its place. For each brand, track:

• sales and number of orders;
• average order value;
• food and packaging cost;
• the commission or fees on each sales channel;
• what sells, and what doesn't.

A brand that sells well but loses money on every order — after commission and packaging — is a brand to fix or close.

Stock across brands

Shared ingredients make stock simple in the kitchen and harder on paper. Decide how you record stock: as one store for the kitchen, or split by brand. Either way, count regularly and compare what you used with what your recipes say you sold; see our guide to reducing waste with stock counts.

How BillDine fits a cloud kitchen

Here is what BillDine does today, and what it doesn't yet:

• Brands and outlets. A brand is a name guests know and holds its own menu. In BillDine each brand needs its own outlet; an outlet has its own POS terminals, kitchen sections, tables and stock. Additional outlets are bought on any plan; the brand itself costs nothing.
• Every order to the right station. Orders are split into one ticket per kitchen section, on a kitchen screen or a printer, with late and rushed tickets standing out.
• Orders for later. A takeaway or delivery can be booked for a later time; its tickets reach the kitchen by themselves when it is time to start cooking.
• Recipes and food cost. Recipes take ingredients out of stock as you sell and show each dish's cost per portion. Transfer stock moves ingredients from one outlet to another — a central store supplying the others — at the sending outlet's average cost, and both outlets' records show it.
• Reports by brand. Reports can look at one outlet, one brand or the whole business, by sales channel, and Home ranks outlets and compares them side by side.
• Delivery platforms — not yet. Orders from delivery apps are typed into the POS by hand for now: BillDine's connection to delivery platforms is not available yet.

See BillDine for cloud kitchens and reports in depth.

Before you add a brand

1. List its ingredients and mark the ones no other brand uses.
2. Check which stations it loads, and at what hours.
3. Cost each dish with packaging and channel fees.
4. Set it up so its sales and costs can be seen on their own.
5. Review it after a month: keep, fix or close.