Ghost kitchen / Yong Azrina Ali Akbar, Wan Shahrul Aziah Wan Mahamad and Ramli Saad

Have you ever heard of a ghost kitchen? Is it a haunted kitchen? Of course not! Then, what is ghost kitchen? Ghost kitchens, also known as virtual restaurants or cloud kitchens, are food operations for delivery-only meals with no physical storefronts or dining areas (Volpe, 2020). Ghost kitchen are food prep operations with no waiters, no dining room and no parking lot but alive in food apps (Miller, 2021). The year 2020 was a terrible and terrifying year for hoteliers and restauranteurs all over the world. Restaurants were the hardest damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in a sudden wave of business closures. As traditional hotel services were no longer available due to safety concerns, restaurant owners had to reconsider their business strategies. Before the pandemic, ghost kitchens were mostly employed by virtual restaurants, but as the pandemic prompted, restaurant owners to cut back on operations or close down, more chain restaurants have begun to adopt the Ghost Kitchen concept (EHL Insight, n.d). Hawley (2020) stated that Euromonitor, a market research group, forecasted that there might be a $1 trillion business of ghost kitchen by 2030. This is happening at the same time as many brick-and-mortar restaurants face near-impossible working conditions. Stores in cities where lunch was once a lively business saw revenues plummet. To offset their losses, some restaurants are putting everything they have into virtual expansion, launching wholly new brands that exist solely online. According to AFP (2021), a survey by Researchandmarkets.com, the global ghost kitchen business is predicted to develop at a rate of more than 12% per year by 2028, reaching a value of US$139.37 billion. While report stated in Euromonitor, China already has 7,500 cloud kitchens and India has 3,500, compared to 1,500 in the United States and 750 in the United Kingdom. The example of ghost kitchen in Malaysia is GF Ghost Kitchen at The Curve, Citta Mall and Marc Residence KL. From a single location, GF Ghost Kitchen, a subsidiary of FBE Ventures (FBEV), serves and delivers the offerings of 15 F&B international and local companies (the most of which are owned by FBEV). Wingstop, Gajah Mada, Tail & Fin, Canning Heritage, and many more are among the featured brands. Other examples are Epic Food Hall, Dahmakan Cloud Kitchen, and Cookhouse Malaysia (Business Advisor, 2022).