Approximately one third of the restaurants listed on iFood, the food delivery app most used by Brazilians, are dark kitchens, according to an unprecedented study in the country – and one of the few ever carried out in the world – on delivery-only kitchens, which have won strength during the covid-19 pandemic.
In addition to the lack of facilities for on-site consumption, these establishments also have other characteristics: they are located in areas further away from urban centers, they sell mainly Brazilian food, snacks and desserts and are cheaper than conventional restaurants. These and other conclusions were presented by researchers from Unicamp in an article published Thursday (18/05) in the magazine Food Research International.
To identify and characterize dark kitchens in the application, data collection was carried out in two stages. In the first, through data mining, the name, URL address and CNPJ (National Business Register) of 22.520 restaurants in three urban centers (Limeira, Campinas and São Paulo) were obtained, as well as their linear distance to the city center , estimated delivery time, user reviews, type of food offered, possibility of scheduling deliveries and tracking the location of the order.
In the second, the first thousand establishments located from the center of each city were classified as dark kitchens (727, that is, 27,1%), standard or standard restaurants (1.749 or 65,2%) or undefined (206 or 7,7%), about whom not enough information was obtained or whose addresses pointed to non-existent places, such as land. In the capital, the number of dark kitchens is even higher: 35,4%.
“We believe, however, that this number is higher, as the platform does not require the positioning of restaurants nor identifies information for the consumer, meaning that, in several cases, we did not obtain enough data to put the hammer down”, says Diogo Thimoteo da Cunha, professor of the nutrition course, researcher at the Multidisciplinary Laboratory in Food and Health (LabMAS) at the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Unicamp (FCA-Unicamp) and research coordinator. “So much so that we also need to carry out investigative work, searching for information on social networks and Google Street View, calling and sending messages and even visiting places to observe facades.”
“We were also able to see that, in the three cities, dark kitchens are further away from the central regions, which reduces production costs and leads to lower prices, unlike a well-located restaurant, which needs to invest in a facade and other services”, adds Mariana Piton Hakim, researcher at LabMAS and first author of the work. “On the other hand, in São Paulo, we observed that conventional restaurants had a higher number of stars [user ratings], in addition to having more reviews in the three cities, which may be related to the lower sales volume of dark kitchens and the fact that conventional restaurants are generally better known.”
Other data extracted from the research, financed by Fapesp, were the types of food most served by dark kitchens (in the capital, Brazilian cuisine, in 30,3% of cases; while in smaller cities, snacks and desserts, in 34,7% of cases cases) and their organizational models: independent (kitchens rented by a brand exclusively for their own use, which may or may not have a facade); shell or hub (shared by more than one kitchen/restaurant); franchise (with more than one point of sale, well-established social networks and being able to be present in different cities); virtual kitchen in a standard restaurant with a different menu (installed at the same address as a physical restaurant, but with a different name and service); virtual kitchen in a standard restaurant with a similar menu, but a different name (set up at the same address as a physical restaurant, with the same type of menu, but a different name); and domestic (located in residential buildings or houses).
Consumer perception and health issues
Although dark kitchens frequently appear in the news due to fights with neighbors due to the noise, bad smells and traffic of motorcyclists in their residential neighborhoods, researchers raise another issue to be clarified: their hygienic-sanitary conditions.
“We noticed that this restaurant model seems to be on the margins of legislation – not because it is illegal in itself, but because no one has ever taken the time to fully understand how the sector works and how it can be improved,” says Cunha. “We don’t want to make your work difficult, especially because we know that it brings resources and is a trend that is here to stay, but to understand its impact on the economy and also make it viable in a legal way so that it can be properly accessed by health surveillance, which today has difficulties in inspecting domestic kitchens, strengthening the sector and providing consumer protection.”
This should be the focus of the group's next studies, which intends, later this year, to visit dark kitchens to closely observe their functioning, qualities and defects and understand the producer's perception. The expectation is that sanitary flaws will be found in cases of domestic kitchens, such as the presence of animals and families, as well as single-use refrigerators, but also examples of how to overcome these weaknesses and bring potential suggestions for the sector.
The researchers also point out that the situation is aggravated by the fact that consumers do not exactly understand the concept of dark kitchen and are unaware of possible risks for the food and their family, according to a previous study by the group, published in the magazine Food Research International.
“Consumers’ perception is ambiguous: while they believe that a meal ordered through iFood brings a certain seal of protection, they do not consider that the application has responsibility for the safety of the food”, says Hakim.
The study is being carried out in partnership with the University of São Paulo (USP) and the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), in addition to two international educational institutions (universities of Central Lancashire, in the United Kingdom, and Gdansk, in Poland) , which will allow comparison of the sector in different countries.
The report contacted the iFood platform through its press office, but did not receive a response until the closing of this edition.
Access the article: Exploring dark kitchens in Brazilian urban centers: A study of delivery-only restaurants with food delivery apps
