101 | The Shadowy World of Dark Kitchens
101 | The Shadowy World of Dark Kitchens
Plus a new food crime prevention tool (free!) and beef versus plant-based sustainability survey results
This is The Rotten Apple, an inside view of food integrity for professionals, policy-makers and purveyors. Subscribe for weekly insights, latest news and emerging trends in food safety, food authenticity and sustainable supply chains.
This Thursday/Friday: Food Safety Culture Live Training 17/18 August
Dark kitchens in the food safety shadows
A review of the Food Crime Risk Profiling Tool
Food safety news - some weird contaminant-food combos this week
Quick bite: meat sustainability versus plant-based alternatives
Food fraud news, emerging issues (horizon scanning) and incidents
🎧 Listen Now (for paying subscribers) 🎧
Hi!
Welcome to Issue 101 of The Rotten Apple.
If you are new here, please allow me to re-introduce myself. I’m Karen, a bachelor-qualified food scientist and a food safety and food fraud specialist. This month I celebrate two years of writing The Rotten Apple… two years of sharing insights and new discoveries from the world of food safety, food fraud and sustainable supply chains… two years of hitting the publish button every week. Two years of thinking about you and what you would like to hear about.
Not every reader has been here the whole time. This post is going out to more than 2000 readers from 89 countries. One year ago, there were just 1000 of you. I am so fortunate to hit the publish button for new readers every week; real people who care about making our global food supply safer and more sustainable. Lucky me.
Thank you for making space in your inbox and giving me a share of your time and attention every week. If you ever want to get in touch, simply reply to any email - I read every response.
What’s next? You may have noticed some small changes to the format; there are no longer issue numbers in the heading/subject line of each post (this helps new readers find me online) and each week’s audio version is now at the top of the page.
As we enter our third year together, I will continue to strive for a positive-sum world, showing up quietly in your inbox each week with the best work I can produce. There are five more live events scheduled for 2023 (check the calendar here) and paying subscribers will continue to benefit from special monthly supplements.
The big story this week is about dark kitchens, which are a bit of a food safety black hole (‘scuse the pun). Also this week, a valuable new resource in our fight against food crime, plus sustainable meat perceptions.
As always, this issue ends with food fraud news and incidents from around the world for paying subscribers. You can peek below the paywall and check out all the other benefits of a paid subscription - with a free 7 day trial, just click the green button on the paywall.
Thank you for reading, and have a lovely week,
Karen
Did you know? 👏 94% of readers say they enjoy this newsletter 😊
Cover image: Ryan Loughlin on Unsplash
Reminder: Live Training (Food Safety Culture) This Week
Join me this Thursday or Friday (depending on your timezone) as I present a curated selection of strategies and systems for building, measuring and documenting a robust food safety culture (and acing your next audit!).
Everyone is welcome, and recordings are available for paying subscribers.
🍏 Details here: Food Safety Culture Training - 17th/18th August 2023 🍏
Dark Kitchens - Emerging from the Food Safety Shadows
Shining a spotlight on the risky realm of dark kitchens
Dark kitchens are food service establishments that cater exclusively to online food delivery orders, with no traditional restaurant dining or in-person takeaway experience.
They are often situated away from main dining and entertainment areas and can be housed in industrial and suburban areas, where space and rent are cheaper, and where they are closer to population centres for efficient deliveries. They have no direct interaction with their customers, who don’t know where they are located or what other foods are produced on site.
Food safety specialists worry about dark kitchens because they can fall between the cracks of regulation and oversight. Without an obvious street presence, they can be overlooked by enforcement officials.
The segment is still poorly understood, say researchers from the State University of Campinas in Brazil.
“We saw that this restaurant model appeared to be on the margins of the legislation, not because they’re illegal but because no one has taken the trouble to understand how this market segment works and how it can be improved” Diogo Thimoteo da Cunha, an author of recently published research into dark kitchens.
The researchers identified six models of dark kitchens:
independent kitchens, used by a single brand;
shell or hub or central kitchens, which are shared by more than one brand or restaurant;
franchise kitchens, which belong to a single brand which has outlets in multiple locations;
virtual kitchens attached to a traditional restaurant, with a different name and menu to the traditional restaurant;
virtual kitchens attached to a traditional restaurant with a different name but a similar menu;
home-based kitchens in residential buildings.
Problems with dark kitchens
With dark kitchens located physically distant from traditional food service venues, there are fewer opportunities for customers or senior managers to become aware of food safety or worker safety infractions.
This can lead to both food safety risks and hazards for workers. Dark kitchens are frequently described as cramped and stressful, with one commentator describing the physical environment of a typical dark kitchen as like the “dark Satanic mills” of William Blake’s poem.
The responsibility for keeping food safe between the kitchen and the consumer lies with delivery services, which can be governed by fewer rules or less stringent food safety expectations than the kitchens themselves. Food must be kept hot enough and cold enough during delivery to ensure safety, but the delivery process is outside the control of the kitchen.
Food safety and quality concerns raised by consumers are lodged with the food ordering service and may not be conveyed to the dark kitchen, which could prevent problems from being rectified in a timely manner.
Consumers may assume that food ordered from a known restaurant has been prepared in a traditional restaurant venue when instead it has been prepared in a dark kitchen; a process that undermines transparency and consumer trust.
Some dark kitchens are operated in domestic spaces, which could give rise to serious food safety risks due to the presence of pets, family members and storage of domestic food items.
Dark kitchens are literally out of sight of food safety enforcement officers who may not be aware of their presence, and hence unable to visit them for food safety checks.
Solutions
Awareness of the presence of dark kitchens is growing, among consumers and food safety enforcement agencies.
Researchers plan to learn more about dark kitchens by visiting them to observe defects and formulate solutions.
Food safety special interest groups, such as within the UK Institute of Food Science and Technology are discussing ways to help dark kitchen operators meet their regulatory obligations to ensure their food is consistently safe and compliant.
In short: 🍏 Dark kitchens can have less food safety oversight than traditional food service operations 🍏 Risks are exacerbated by operational models and enforcement gaps 🍏 Awareness is growing and research is underway to formulate solutions to food safety compliance risks 🍏
Sources:
Mariana Piton Hakim, Methner, V., Luis D'Avoglio Zanetta, Stedefeldt, E., Laís Mariano Zanin, Jan Mei Soon-Sinclair, Małgorzata Zdzisława Wiśniewska and Diogo (2023). Exploring dark kitchens in Brazilian urban centres: a study of delivery-only restaurants with food delivery apps. 170, pp.112969–112969. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2023.112969.
Hakim, M.P., Dela Libera, V.M., Zanetta, L.D., Nascimento, L.G.P. and da Cunha, D.T. (2022). What is a dark kitchen? A study of consumer’s perceptions of deliver-only restaurants using food delivery apps in Brazil. Food Research International, 161, p.111768. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2022.111768.
EurekAlert! (n.d.). Three out of every ten meals ordered from the main food delivery app in Brazil come from dark kitchens. [online] Available at: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/997605 [Accessed 14 Aug. 2023].
Food Crime Risk Profiling Tool (a Review)
A new resource for food businesses
Scotland’s food safety agency, Food Standards Scotland, has just launched a new tool to help food businesses understand their vulnerabilities to food crime and mitigate the risks.
The tool is an online questionnaire that generates a report containing areas of strength and weakness in relation to food crime risks, plus guidance targeted at areas of weakness.
I tried out the tool today and published what I found - including how long it took, security of data, anonymity, and links to extra guidance in a separate post for paying subscribers.
Access my report on the Food Crime Risk Profiling Tool here (for paying subscribers).
Short take:
the tool provides ‘high level’ feedback and broad guidance points with no specific action suggestions;
it is worth undertaking the self-assessment process within the tool.
The publishers recommend it be completed by senior strategic-level personnel, but…
comparing the answers from senior and less-senior managers in your organisation could provide valuable insights by revealing blind spots and misalignments;
consider revisiting the tool each year to measure your business’s improvements in food crime risk prevention.
🍏 Read more about the tool and access it from here 🍏
Quick Bite
Sustainability perceptions for beef versus alternatives
A survey of US consumers revealed that they don’t consider cultivated meat to be better for the environment than beef, with only 22% believing it is a more sustainable alternative.
The survey was interesting because the researchers used two different terms for cultivated meat to see if there were any differences in responses.
“Each respondent was only asked one set of these questions. Cell-cultured and lab-grown refer to the same thing, but we were curious if the alternative labeling produced a different set of beliefs,” they said.
Surprisingly, plant-based beef alternatives were NOT considered better for the environment than beef, with only 34% of respondents saying they were better than beef, and 41% saying beef is better for the environment than plant-based alternatives.
Read more about the survey here
More like this from the past two weeks:
Cultivated meat: Food technology neophobia influences attitudes, suggests study (foodnavigator.com)
Sustainability has been ‘normalised,’ Circana report shows (foodnavigator.com)
What you missed in last week’s email
Bacteriophages - weird little viruses that changed the world
Food safety news and free (good) resources
Quick bites: sesame allergens, regenerative ag and cancer properties of red meat
Food fraud news and incidents
Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, emerging issues and incident reports, plus an 🎧 audio archive 🎧 for your listening pleasure 😁
📌 Food Fraud News 📌
Food Quality ‘Fraud’
There have long been concerns in Europe that consumers in some countries are supplied with lower-quality versions of particular foods compared to consumers in other countries. This is often called ‘dual quality’. The Joint Research Centre of
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