Heinz means business: food giant looks to create network of virtual kitchens
Available via Uber Eats, Heinz Brekkie already has two London dark kitchens and hopes to expand by making use of underutilised kitchens across the UK including those in hotels, pubs and supermarkets.
The menu features breakfast buns, breakfast bowls, hash brown dippers, bagels and sides. All featuring established Heinz products, options include The Hot One breakfast bun; The Full Vegan; and Truffle Hash Brown Dippers.
Heinz is not the first food manufacturer to utilise virtual restaurants but appears to be looking to do it on a larger scale than the likes of Kellogg’s, which launched a short-lived delivery kitchen in 2019 for largely promotional purposes.
Kraft Heinz’s head of foodservice for Northern Europe Claire Traynor says that the virtual restaurant model has disrupted the foodservice market and that the space would allow it to reach a younger audience “while also supporting those operators with underutilised kitchens”.
“Virtual brands such as Heinz Brekkie help us to get even closer to UK consumers,” she continues. “Eventually, we will be able to use this model to test new flavours, pilot innovation and get real-time feedback quickly, so we can be more agile in terms of delivering the very best products and experiences for our consumers and customers.”
Kraft Heinz says Heinz Brekkie is the latest example of its global Agile@Scale transformation strategy, which aims to use ‘agile consumer listening and insight-based innovation to offer consumers, partners and retailers the products, flavours, formulations and brand experiences they want most’.