Meal ordering and delivery platform Uber Eats is reportedly planning to introduce 400 ‘virtual restaurants’ across the UK by the end of the year.
According to The Telegraph, the virtual restaurants will help increase a takeaway’s existing resources while using existing kitchen space.
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Uber Eats will offer extra takeaway menus across the virtual restaurants, which can be seen by customers on the delivery app.
Uber US head of virtual restaurants Cathy Zhou was quoted by The Telegraph as saying: “The opportunity is really huge just given the early signals we’ve seen from the restaurants that we’ve already worked with.
“We launched virtual restaurants in January 2017 starting in Chicago, and today we already see over 1,600 virtual restaurants globally.”
Uber Eats UK manager Toussaint Wattine added: “We heard there was an appetite from restaurants to grow their business. Starting with our experience in the US, we have showed how you can build up menus using existing infrastructure.”
This concept has already been tested in the UK by Deliveroo, which earlier this year launched its own chain of virtual restaurants.
Uber Technologies was reportedly in ‘early talks’ to purchase a stake in Deliveroo in a deal valued at more than $2bn.
Besides Uber Eats, major players in the UK food delivery segment include Just Eat and Deliveroo.
