Cloud kitchen experience in Kuala Lumpur.

This post shares about my experience renting a cloud kitchen for our short-term festive bakery venture. If you are looking to rent one, this may be some tips for you too.

Why a cloud kitchen?

My partners and I were intending on scaling our business for the festive season. This means that we will need a bigger fridge, more shelves, and most importantly, a degree of halal-ness, ensuring our customers are safe and our conscience at peace.

Now that we have rented and experienced a cloud kitchen, I'm sharing a few considerations to bear in mind if you are thinking of renting one too.

1.Location

Consider where you stay and where your kitchen will be. Also consider the delivery services you'll need to engage for your products. It may be cheaper to rent further out, but do consider the cost of travelling (financially, physically, and mentally). Finding a location that meets in the middle for all may be your best choice!

We chose one that is one toll payment away from our homes and located somewhat in the middle point of our delivery radius. That is just where the cloud kitchen is, then there is the location of your unit as well! Do think about where the main entrance is from your unit (for when you need to carry heavy or bulky items in), your unit positioning for lighting and air conditioning, and things as simple as where the parking, toilets, or even the nearest eatery/coffee shop is.

Of course, we also considered all the other points below as well.

2.Facilities & Utilities

You'll know best what you need in your kitchen for your business. Cloud kitchen are built to accommodate many kinds of F&B types, from flame-throwing, smoke-grilling kitchen for hot food, to cooler kitchen for pastries and desserts.

The generic kitchen layout at the place we rented consist of a hood, a hob, a metal table, shelving units, a chiller, a freezer, and a sink.

If you require more, do make sure the cloud kitchen includes those in your contract. Never hesitate to ask about their facilities and equipment. Sometimes, they may have what you need (usually for a price) and that may ease your business as the setup capital may not be as heavy on you. Especially knowing they can help you set it up in your unit. Additionally, the cloud kitchen will also know the capacity of the voltages needed for any heavy machinery or equipment you may use, so it'd be best to discuss that too.

Pretty sure this is already part of any cloud kitchen layout, but do check for the number of plug points and the type of plugs they support. This may be petty, but in your daily grind, this could be very important.

Additionally, imagine your kitchen setup (including places to hang things, stick things, tape things, hold things, play music, touch screens, etc), and ask about any do's and don'ts at the cloud kitchen unit. You want your space to be comfortable for you to and should know if there are certain setups that are not allowed.

3.Support Staff

Ensure the cloud kitchen has support channels and staff you can holler if necessary (e.g. for leaky faucet, aircon problems, pest control, etc...). Ours has a WhatsApp group set up once your rental application goes through, so it was handy when we had questions or requests. Ours also had support staff in daily, as they do assist in the running of some of the kitchens too (e.g. taking orders, payments, and delivery). If you are renting, do build good rapport with the support staffs, as they can be extra helpful in times of needs.

4.Kitchen temperature

If you are working with temperature-sensitive products, like we were, you may want to also ensure the kitchen temperature is catered to your needs. Ours required a cool kitchen to maintain dough and fondant quality, so it was a rather crucial point we missed. Would not want you to make the same mistake we did. Do enquire on the air-conditioning schedule or setup if you require. Any details from central/manual air-conditioning, extra charges, additional cooling equipment setup etc may be some thing you'd want to ensure is catered to your business.

5.Hygiene

This numbering does not lower its priority in F&B's business consideration. Your cloud kitchen's hygiene should be up to standard, especially for you and your business. Do check on their plumbing, drainages, coverings, cleaning tools used, etc. You can also enquire about their cleaning and pest control schedules, if they do routine hygiene and safety checks on every kitchen units as well. Some kitchen may offer cleaning services as well, so do look out for those (but of course, do check on the frequency of cleaning depending on your business routines).

6.Rental/Pricing

Of course, finally, the price involved in renting a cloud kitchen will be definitely part of your consideration as this will be part of your business capital. Ensure that you are confident with the amount of sales you can make to ensure you are able to cover not just the cost of the rental, but also all the appliances, equipment or tools, packaging, storages, and ingredients you will need for your business. This is excluding any other operational and marketing cost your business will need to fork out as well. But running the business and all its cost will be worth another post.

Fortunately, depending on how long you are intending to run this business for, cloud kitchens usually have a more economical rental option for longer term tenants. So pick your battle wisely.

Our cloud kitchen gallery:

Before you rent, please note:

You will need a few things ready, as it will be requested for the rental application.

1. A business registration number, which you can apply for via SSM ezbiz. Read HERE for how-to's.
2. Food handling certification (example attached). This is a certification you can easily obtained via an online/physical course from a Malaysian Ministry of Health recognised organisation. The course we attended was an online training over Zoom that took 3 hours of our time and consists of multiple formative assessments during the video call.
3. Typhoid jab and any other relevant vaccination (e.g. COVID). The clinic will provide you with a vaccination card once you have gotten your jab. This card will also serve to remind you of when to retake your vaccine.

All the best on your venture! Enjoy the ride!