Practical thinking on production, operations and growth — for restaurant groups, corporate caterers, and food manufacturers who want to do things properly.
Most restaurants think they need a central production unit (CPU) far earlier than they actually do. Though a few do need one on day one. The trick is knowing which you are.
It's a question every food business periodically asks itself, and it turns a practical question about space into a board-level capital-allocation question: where should our money actually be working?
When an operator starts looking at units, the search almost always begins with the wrong number: square footage. How much space do we need? is the easy question, but not the most important.
Your rent is under half of what a self-managed kitchen actually costs. We break down the other half: rates, insurance, waste, servicing, and the bills that arrive years after you sign.
Building a London CPU costs around £682,500 upfront and takes over a year. Renting costs much the same per month, with no capital tied up and production live in two weeks. We run the real numbers.
Most sustainability claims are statements of intent. The harder question is mechanical: what happens to the waste, the oil and the energy, and what was the cost of the building itself?