GrabFood unveils its first cloud kitchen in Singapore

FOOD delivery service GrabFood on Wednesday launched its first cloud kitchen in Singapore, joining rivals foodpanda and deliveroo, as well as independent cloud kitchen operator Smart City Kitchens, in an increasingly competitive vertical.

Located at Lam Soon Industrial Building in Hillview, the 6,000-square-foot cloud kitchen, named GrabKitchen, has 10 merchants, including Thai Dynasty, Wolf Burgers and bubble tea maker PlayMade.

Cloud kitchens are centralised food production facilities where merchants can rent cooking space and equipment, allowing them to serve consumers in a new location without having to set up a restaurant with a dine-in area and staff.

GrabKitchen will enable more efficient on-demand delivery to GrabFood customers in neighbouring districts such as Cashew and Bukit Batok, said Lim Kell Jay, regional head of GrabFood, at a media briefing.

Customers can also dine in at GrabKitchen. The premises also houses a fulfilment centre, GrabFood Hub, that carries packaged food brands such as Irvin's salted-egg snacks.

Grab already owns about 50 cloud kitchens across four other South-east Asian countries, mostly in Indonesia, and plans to open up more in 2020. Mr Lim declined to provide any specific targets.

Grab's expansion in the cloud kitchens vertical comes as its food delivery business sees exponential growth. GrabFood's gross merchandise value for its regional business rose 5.2 times in 2019, Mr Lim said, while its number of active users has almost tripled.

Beyond the GrabKitchen launch, GrabFood is also set to roll out a unified app for merchants providing access to financial and advertising services. For instance, GrabFood merchants will be able to apply for working capital loans from Grab Financial, the company's financial services arm, through the unified app.

GrabFood is also testing a new platform that will allow its merchants to procure ingredients and supplies at competitive prices, and have them delivered to their stores. Grab currently offers this service only in Indonesia.

"In 2020, we'll combine our capabilities across food delivery, financial and advertising services, and provide merchants with the tools of the trade that will take their businesses to new heights," Mr Lim said.