Kludio: A pandemic-resistant business model

Dhaka, a city buzzing with new, exciting food places, became deserted after the shutdown was imposed. With most restaurants and cafés closed, food enthusiasts were having a tough time. But Kludio came to their rescue.

Instead of searching for many restaurants, customers can find a variety of items here. From fast food to traditional dishes, Kludio has it all.

Under the same roof, this kitchen prepares different items from its multiple ventures. For example, Dough on the Go offers pizzas, Frybox, as the name suggests, offers boxes of French fries, nuggets etc and so on.

Kishwar Hashemee, chief executive officer of Kludio, said that their cloud kitchen is built under a new business model where customers will a get variety of food prepared in the same kitchen, all of which are available only for take-outs.

Under the current situation, this is convenient for customers because dining out during the pandemic is risky. You can order from Kludio through food delivery apps or directly from their website.

This business model saved Kludio from the drastic economic losses that many other restaurant or start-up owners faced during the shutdown, believes Kishwar.

He said, "Traditional restaurants without delivery services faced many troubles when the shutdown started. Even when number of customers was steadily declining, owners had to deal with rents, manage employees, and look after maintenance."

But Kludio did not have to carry the burden of these extra expenses.

Kishwar admitted that the number of orders has decreased compared to regular times because people are mostly eating home-cooked meals. And some of them are concerned about hygiene.

Addressing this issue, he said, "We always maintain hygiene in our kitchen, it is one of our core values. After the virus broke out, we became more careful and provided our employees with masks, gloves and hand sanitisers."

In order to be transparent with customers, Kludio created videos of their workers preparing food in the kitchen and uploaded them on their social media pages.  

After completing his graduation in Canada, Kishwar Hashemee wanted to return to Bangladesh to implement new ideas that he had come up with.

In 2016, he came back and started working with Pathao as its operations and growth vice-president.

But being a foodie, he wanted to do something in the food business and began to explore this sector.

When he visited Indonesia in 2018, he saw a fully operational cloud kitchen there and was inspired to build a similar one in Bangladesh.

Along with some of his friends, Kishwar introduced Kludio in July 2019 with the view of combining technology, food, and logistics. Their motto was to "create an experience that is better than what is out there".  

Soon they rented a place for their kitchen and launched their own food brands like Frybox, Hero Burger, Dough on the Go, Goreng (dedicated to fusion Asian cuisine), and Deshio (offers traditional items like plain rice, chicken curry etc).  

Primarily, they started operating in Bashundhara Residential Area, Banani, Gulshan, Mohakhali and Rampura. The plan was to be available in every corner of Dhaka city but it was interrupted by the coronavirus outbreak.

But as Kishwar said earlier, it could not do them much harm, as they did not offer dine-in services to begin with. He also added that with a little strategy, it is possible for restaurant businesses to get over the pandemic.

They are planning on live streaming their cooking to further prove their dedication to customers.  

Kishwar enthusiastically shared that they will be launching their own app in July and they want to introduce the first digital food court in the country where customers will be able to purchase Asian and Mughal food from the same platform.