Restaurants, Hotels Turn To Live Streaming Kitchens To Address Virus Fears

Delhi-NCR based cloud kitchen startup Instapizza started live streaming of their kitchens where chefs can be seen baking pizzas and preparing other food in to gain consumer confidence as the number of food orders dwindle.

Instapizza has launched live streaming on the ‘Crustflix by Instapizza’ platform. Instapizza said that it launched live streaming to ensure consumers that team, kitchens and food remain safe. As of now, the startup is live broadcasting kitchens from 10 locations spread across Delhi NCR.

See how we take care of you all day, every day. Live stream now on https://t.co/c9WeZlpeH1#lockdown #InCrustWeTrust #Crustflix pic.twitter.com/c0rSolDtsX

— Instapizza (@instapizzaindia) May 6, 2020

Besides the live streaming, Instapizza claims that hourly symptom checks of people working in the kitchen are conducted routinely. The staff has been also told to wash their hands every 20 minutes while Instapizza claims to be conducting a deep cleaning of the kitchen every two hours.

Cloud kitchen major Rebel Foods, which operates brands such as Faasos, Oven Story, Mandarin Oak, among others, has also taken a slew of initiatives to encourage more consumers to order their food online. For one, the startup has started sharing body temperatures of all the persons involved in the delivery of food order, right from the start. However, the company hasn’t yet started the live streaming of the kitchens.

As of now, body temperatures of delivery-partner and all the people working inside the kitchen are shared along with the bill. Rebel Foods said that the tracker is operational across over 350 locations in India, UAE and South East Asia.

Will All Kitchens Switch To Live Streaming?

Currently, Instapizza is among the very first cloud kitchens across the globe which have started broadcasting their kitchen live. Besides Instapizza, luxury hospitality chain Roseate House is also live-streaming the feed from its kitchens. New Delhi-based Roseate House has recently started delivering gourmet meals to consumers nearby.

However, while Instapizza is broadcasting the feed on an online platform available to all, Roseate House’s feed is available only to those who have ordered from their kitchens. Roseate House is also said to be sharing the live feed of its kitchens to users who have ordered their food through aggregating platforms such as Swiggy and Zomato.

In the ongoing lockdown, food orders on platforms such as Swiggy and Zomato have dropped significantly. Moreover, a few incidents, wherein delivery partners of food aggregators and cloud kitchens were found Covid-19 positive, also dropped the consumer confidence. As a result, food delivery orders dropped by around 30%, according to a report by TOI.

Meanwhile, Loginext cofounder Dhruvil Sanghvi raised concerns on the initiative.

In a tweet, Loginext CEO Sanghvi said, “Appreciation and demand for higher hygiene and safety standards in kitchens was long due, especially in India. But does the customer want to see the kitchen live? I don’t think customers will be as paranoid in the mid to long run.”

Responding to Sanghvi, Instapizza accepted the fact that customers may not watch the live streaming of the kitchens and said, “Agree that the customer may not want to tune in and watch (live-streamed kitchens x low sales = super boring), but for us its more about accountability and transparency, which we think are imperative going forward. CrustFlix is now a permanent part of our business model.”

As the trend of live streaming has started to pick, it is yet to be seen if more players in the space will follow the suit. Moreover, it would be interesting to see if these players will continue streaming their kitchens after the lockdown or not.