Virtual Kitchen’s “Impact of Covid19” study reveals food delivery demands across Dubai
Sweetheart Kitchen undertook a special survey among its customers across its five kitchens in Dubai over a period of three months to better understand how the corona pandemic and lockdown was changing food trends. The company looked at its customer behaviour and ordering patterns to identify a shift in healthy vs fast food, and potentially identify new delivery trends across various neighbourhoods where it operated in Dubai.
The research, conducted across 50,000 customers (pre-lockdown, during lockdown, and post lockdown), revealed insights that helped the kitchens to make a few menu design changes to meet the demands as a result of those trends.
Dubai Top Delivery Areas
Jumeirah Village Circle remained consistent as Sweetheart Kitchen’s number one delivery area, customers in Marina and Jumeirah Lake Towers witnessed a decrease in their purchase behaviour drastically during lockdown, where the majority of new “home chefs” within the Emirate grew. Once the lockdown was over, the kitchen started to see an emerging trend in both Marina and JLT.
Dubai Top Individually Ordered Menu Items
The data shows that customers are looking for a healthier food delivery options as the country opened up, post lockdown. Before the lockdown and during the lockdown, French fries were the number one ordered item, followed by Chicken Wings and Mozzarella Sticks. After the lockdown was over, DIY (Do It Yourself) salad moved up to the number one rank followed by a DIY Quinoa Bowl, and the trend towards ordering healthier items continues across various categories too.
Dubai’s Top Categories
While finger foods reigned at the number one spot before and during the lockdown (this includes French Fries, Onion Rings, Mozzarella Sticks, Fried Chicken Wings, Nuggets), signature salads have now moved to the number one spot, followed by our Signature Burritos. Quinoa Bowls moved out of the Top 5 spot during Corona Lockdown and now has moved back into the top 5 once the lockdown was over. All signs show a trend towards a healthier food delivery option post lockdown.
Change in Average Items Per Order (AIPO)
During the lockdown, customers were spending a little more on their orders, and since the lockdown has ended, have decided to reduce their spending.
Peter Schatzberg, founder and CEO at Sweetheart Kitchen, added, “We are a private label, multi-brand virtual kitchen that was designed to eliminate the various bottlenecks, or capacity constraints, in the food delivery supply chain. By further delving into our own data, we can better understand the customer we are serving, and make better decisions to continuously innovate and improve our menu offerings.
This report follows the launch of Sweetheart Kitchen’s fifth kitchen in Dubai in Al Raffa district bringing the total of its kitchens to eight across Dubai and Kuwait.
