Food delivery is one of the new normal
today. People order food online and wait for it to be delivered straight to
their doorstep. Although this is so convenient, especially during the lockdown period,
there is one factor that may stop people from doing so: the high price.
Some people believe that the kitchens in
our homes may soon become antiquated, for the same reasons we don’t sew our own
clothes anymore. Longer working hours has led to shorter dining time. People
working in the city have no time to prepare their own meals. This presents an
interesting problem: the demand for food delivery is high, but the barrier
(price) is also high.
The price is high not because the
restaurants or delivery companies are hoarding profits, but because of high
fixed costs with food delivery. The courier requires a minimum wage. The
ingredients can only be so cheap. There aren’t a ton of things through the food
delivery value chain that restaurants can innovate without significant
technological advances.
One way to solve the problem is to
transform into cloud kitchen. Businesses can rent smaller spaces with less foot
traffic, cutting down their biggest operational expenses: real estate cost. And
this is what Domino’s Pizza has been doing for years.
The similarities between cloud kitchens
and Domino’s:
·
Stores
have small / no dining space and are optimized for delivery
·
Location
of real estate is focused on the best routes, not the best foot traffic
·
Food
product travels well and can feed a lot of people inexpensively
Stock Returns (%)
Additionally, Domino’s adopts the
franchise model. This helps the business grow incredibly. Unlike other
businesses, a franchise model allows a business to expand without huge capital
to fund growth. They can source the capital required to open new locations
through their franchisees.
However, not every business can adopt a
franchise model. The reason Domino’s can do this, is because their pizza is
cheap and a standard product that is easy to make. Simple ingredients and
repeatable baking steps. They do not need high quality control on their dining
environment like Starbucks.
Because of the capital efficiency of
franchises, consistency of growing revenue, and strong asset base — they are
able to maintain a high debt level (4.5x - 5.0x EBITDA). And with interest
rates at all-time lows, their interest expense does not cripple their
operations.
Domino’s business model made them
perfectly situated in a quarantine, delivery-first world. It is still one of
the leading Pizza brands with strong international presence. Its revenue has
also risen sharply in the last five years. All this to say that Domino’s is the
platonic ideal of future cloud kitchens. The company’s foresight to optimize
for delivery, place stores in low-cost and route-optimized retail locations,
and build a digital brand and app is now paying off.
Reference:
1.
Adam
Keesling, How Domino’s Stock Returned 4,595% https://divinations.substack.com/
2.
Abhijeet
Pratap, Revenue Model of Domino’s Pizza https://statstic.com/
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