‘Going dark’ or under the radar? Challenges and opportunities for local authorities and dark kitchens in ensuring food safety

Abstract

Traditionally takeaway food outlets have relied on passing trade or it was included as part of a restaurant’s offering. Yet the surge in online applications for ordering food has challenged this operational model. The rise of so-called dark kitchens that have no physical customer-facing presence has revolutionised the takeaway food sector. This change comes with a unique set of challenges and opportunities for food safety inspections and implementations. This study aims to assess the challenges in identifying and regulating dark kitchens, and to identify potential interventions to increase food safety compliance in dark kitchens by working with local authorities and dark kitchen owners and tenants. A mixed-method study involving a cross-sectional survey (n=123) and two focus group discussions with 16 Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) and 16 semistructured interviews with dark kitchen owners and tenants were conducted in England. Our study revealed multiple challenges faced by dark kitchen operators in managing food safety in shared spaces, food handling during delivery, high turnover of staff and delays in updating menu changes with online aggregators. The latter part of our study highlights the challenges encountered by EHOs in identifying and inspecting dark kitchens; including resource constraints, lack of dark kitchens’ visibility, multiple trading names, insufficient guidance from regulatory body, communication difficulties, difficult working conditions in some dark kitchens and problems identifying where responsibility lies. Based on the perspectives of EHOs and dark kitchens, practical recommendations to improve food safety standards of dark kitchens are provided. The study also highlights the important role the online aggregators play in supporting Local Authorities as they have the ability to monitor and ensure rigorous vetting of food businesses before onboarding the food business. This is the first empirical study to assess the challenges in identifying and regulating dark kitchens as well as to identify the challenges and opportunities for food safety implementation and inspection in dark kitchens.