Food and cooking are big parts of TikTok’s video-based social media behemoth, and the app is now rumored to be expanding into the physical world with its chain of delivery-only restaurants in the United States.
According to Bloomberg, TikTok will introduce TikTok Kitchen locations in collaboration with a company called Virtual Dining Concepts. Around 300 spots will be available at the start, with over 1,000 planned by the end of 2022.
“Look, you have a platform with a billion viewers monthly who are constantly engaged, as the numbers show,” Virtual Dining Concepts co-founder Robert Earl told Bloomberg. “It’s the first time there’s a brand like this out there – an audience of hundreds of millions of people.”
According to the source, some of TikTok Kitchen’s restaurants will be established restaurants, such as Buca di Beppo and Bertucci’s, and costs will be “similar to other Virtual Dining Concept companies.”
The focus will be on the most popular culinary fads on TikTok, such as baked feta pasta (which, by the way, is the most-searched-for dish on Google in 2021) and pasta chips (cooked pasta shapes coated in cheese and air-fried).
Earl also stated that the menu will change every three months, so if a new dish becomes popular on social media, it may be added to the menu. TikTok is reportedly planning to split revenues with the chefs who created the menu items and invest in emerging talent.
According to Robert Earl, TikTok recently announced that its platform attracts around a billion users per month, which is a huge number of people (Facebook still leads the way in terms of social media, with close to 3 billion monthly active users).
There’s money to be made even if only a small portion of that userbase becomes interested in ordering food delivered directly to their homes. Social media platforms are always looking for new ways to expand their digital offerings into the real world, and this appears to be a good one.
Another creative aspect of the operation is creating menus based on items that have gone viral on TikTok. TikTok is known for its unusual cuisine, and it’s even better if people can sample the food that has captured their attention. There will likely be more viral videos of the meal being delivered and enjoyed in the future.
The delivery business is crowded, with companies like Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and others, but the new venture’s tie to TikTok (and, in particular, viral meals on TikTok) means it might get a lot of attention soon.
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