cloud kitchens can soar

In FY22, the cloud kitchen market was estimated at $800 million. While the cloud kitchen market saw a slowdown due to the pandemic, it is expected to grow at an annual average pace of 24% during FY2012-26, reaching $1.9 billion in FY2016.

The pre-pandemic preference for ordering in and take-out was further exacerbated as restrictions related to the pandemic temporarily affected the dine-in business. In fact, many restaurant chains have turned their attention to the cloud kitchen model. As a result, food aggregators as well as restaurants offering delivery services helped meet the demand for food services in the early days of the pandemic. While out-of-home activity has resumed with consumers showing a greater appetite for food, the ordering trend has also stalled.

Pakhi Saxena, Practice Head, Retail and Supply, said, “This has led to growth in the cloud kitchen market both from the demand side and the supply side, and has seen a large number of dine-in players turning to the cloud kitchen model. ” Consumer Packaged Goods, Wazir Advisors.

Meanwhile, consumer habits have also changed. Families are generally seeking convenient and easily priced food instead of cooking at home.

The Indian food-tech market witnessed a growth in the number of startups, especially during 2014 and 2016, with over 2,500 food-tech startups emerging. Over the years, the industry has also seen considerable funding activity from investors with some huge deal values. Within food tech, cloud kitchen players are also attracting significant investment. However, funding in food tech startups declined to $2.80 billion in FY22 from $3.40 billion in the previous year. In FY20, food-tech players reported $2.9 billion in funding. The number of startups being founded annually in the food-tech ecosystem is also declining. Over 150 food-tech startups were founded in FY22; According to data from Wazir Advisors, more than 1,300 food-tech startups were founded in 2015.