Russian health foods brand and food tech company, VkusVill has expanded its delivery offering for prepared meals to include hot food.
Customers can now order hot meals via the VkusVill mobile app.
The company has added a new section – Sgoryacha – to its catalogue, visible to customers within the delivery zone.
VkusVill will deliver prepared food in a thermal container within two hours of placing the order.
The hot meals provided by the company are prepared in dark kitchens, where professional chefs prepare food for delivery services.
Currently, VkusVill operates 11 dark kitchens in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd and Cheboksary that have delivered around 53,000 hot meals to date.
Demand For Hot Meals
Sergey Pavlov, head of VkusVill’s dark kitchen project, said, “A year ago, we conducted a survey that showed that, in addition to refrigerated cuisine, customers wanted hot food that they wouldn’t have to heat up. In addition, the market itself indicated that there was a need for a hot-food service.
“Over the last two years, the food consumption model has changed significantly. Delivery has become a common thing, and people want to order not only milk, vegetables and meat, but also ready-made hot dishes.”
Initially, the service launched with 15 dishes, including borscht, cabbage soup, various pastas and cutlets. By August, the menu expanded to include more than 60 different dishes.
Sgoryacha Meals
Sgoryacha meals are prepared fresh by professional chefs in fully equipped kitchens averaging 25 square meters in size.
The new service offers customers a wide range, including breakfast items, starters and main courses, pastas, burgers, pizzas, meal combos, various kinds of dumplings, pies and more.
The most popular meals include buckwheat with beef in cream sauce, dumplings with potatoes and mushrooms, pancakes with caramelised milk, and borscht with marbled beef.
Chefs prepare some of the more complex meals from scratch, while simply putting the finishing touches on others, as in most restaurants, the company added.
Frozen dishes are prepared by suppliers of the VkusVill Ice line of frozen foods.
The company added that almost all items used in preparing the dishes are also available in VkusVill stores and via its online grocery delivery service.
Last year, VkusVill announced plans to open a store in the Netherlands and later in France, while considering a future initial public offering (IPO) in New York.
