Community meals and workers' rights: What happens if councils seize Deliveroo and Uber Eats' 'ghost kitchens'?

Picture the scene: it’s a cold, dark, winter’s night, you’ve had a long day at work – and you fancy a takeaway. You know it’s not great for the drivers, or the restaurants – you once read a Guardian article about the gig economy, after all – but you’re hungry, so you shelve your ethical concerns. An hour later, you’re staring at the empty pizza box, feeling vaguely guilty.

We’ve all been there. But it doesn’t have to be this way, a radical new report insists.

The Autonomy Institute is calling on councils to seize control of so-called ghost kitchens – delivery-only food service facilities that operates without a dine-in space.

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They could then transform these profit-driven enterprises into community infrastructure – boosting local businesses and hosting community meals.

“Most consumers are aware that these companies [delivery apps] are not ‘good’ companies,” says Will Stronge, the director of the Autonomy Institute.

“The demand is there for change, and so is the opportunity. We do have a history of local councils running kitchens of some form, we have a history of public dining… there’s a future there.”

What are ghost kitchens and cloud kitchens?

Cloud kitchens are also known as a ghost kitchens or dark kitchens. These delivery-only food service facilities offer online food delivery platforms shared infrastructure for food preparation.

During the pandemic, such invisible kitchens proliferated at breakneck speed. In 2021, there were more than 750 across the UK; unseen on industrial estates or tucked into shipping containers, these faceless commercial operations lurk out of sight and, mostly, out of mind.

Deliveroo, for example, owns several of the ghost kitchens, renting plug-and-play kitchens to big brands and to ‘delivery-only’ operations.

“These are places to get food to customers faster,” Stronge explains. “Rather than having to deliver from a Franco Manca in central London, you can have a Franco Manca team working in a cloud kitchen or dark kitchen on the outskirts of town, and therefore expand the reach of the platform.”

The worker exploitation concerns around the gig economy are well known. Precarious workers are not classified as “employees” under UK law, an arrangement which denies them collective bargaining rights.  Earlier this year, thousands of delivery drivers for Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat went on strikes over “ridiculously inadequate” pay and dangerous conditions. Drivers told the Big Issue they’d been treated like “human filth”, making less than £100 for a 12 hour shift.

The growth of ghost kitchens has raised additional concerns, because of the ‘out-of-sight’ quality of the facilities. But according to Stronge, the kitchens present an opportunity.

“The platform economy is going into bricks and mortar. What does that mean? And what could it mean?” Strong says.

“In the report, we ask, what could this infrastructure be repurposed for, to be a bit more community-centred and a bit more useful for the areas in which it’s embedded?

Local authorities, the report suggests, should deny the big delivery corporations operating licenses to run cloud kitchens. The council could then buy this infrastructure up – or set up its own, refurbishing the many derelict warehouses across the city – and act as an “enlightened landlord” for food businesses.

“The council could allow for different rates of pay for different kinds of food providers,” Strong says. “For example, you could have a local Caribbean pop-up kitchen, which could actually be very popular with local residents, but hasn’t got that much money. You could offer reduced rates for the first six months for it to get off the ground.”

“Then you could have a corporation like Franco Manca, for example, renting a space, but be paying a higher rate in order to cross-subsidise that local entrepreneurship.”

This could provide a vital lifeline to struggling local business. More than one in 10 restaurants at “imminent” risk of closure, a report out last month found. Restaurant closures, the report said, are already running at their highest level in more than a decade. A total of 1,409 shut their doors in the year ending September 2024, up from 1,180 in the 12 months before.

“Big companies could be charged a levy to help support smaller local businesses,” Stronge explained of the model.

The levy could be redirected back into the kitchen, strengthening “community cohesion” by funding shared dining spaces or public halls.

“[Cloud kitchens] could foster informal social interactions, turning meals into opportunities for community building,” the report reads.

The community would run the spaces through a “cooperative ownership model,” running the kitchens and food spaces along “democratic lines”.

Considering the deepening local government financial crisis, it perhaps all sounds a bit utopian. But there is precedent for this kind of community initiative, Strong insists – and they can be profit making.

“During WW2, there were these communal dining areas that ended up being called British Restaurants by Churchill. It started as a community set of kitchens, then it was taken up by the state as a national grid.

“They provided nutritious food at a really, really, low rate. And they brought different classes together. And most of those kitchens did make a profit.”

“And we know that… food delivery is very popular, it’s going to pay for itself.”

Additionally, a council-owned kitchen could prioritise worker rights: prioritising worker-centric design in cloud kitchens, including ergonomic layouts, rest spaces, and facilities for delivery riders, ensuring fair conditions and reducing operational stress

Tech giants like Deliveroo and Uber Eats are incredibly powerful. But they have “exploited drivers” and “extracted from local communities” for too long, the report urges.

Imagine ordering a take away and feeling good, rather than guilty? It is possible, Autonomy believes.

“The local authority-run kitchen’s mission would be very different to the mission of say, Deliveroo,” Stronge said.

“It could promote local food entrepreneurs, it could look after drivers, it could facilitate community meals… there is a lot of potential there.”

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