One Sandwich and Two Restaurants
Navigating the Thin Line in Virtual Dining
This year, forty thousand unique brands can be found on the UberEats app. That’s four times 2021’s figure and is attributable largely to the growth of digital brands - those with no physical storefront. The issue is, over five thousand of these aren’t unique at all. Rather, they’re versions of a restaurants’ existing menu relabeled, reposted, and resold under a new moniker. The Wall Street Journal’s recent report on the matter found that one San Francisco Pakistani spot cloned their menu over twenty times as separate storefronts. There isn’t really a question regarding this case. UberEats should - they recently did - clean out those clogging the selection pipeline just to get more airtime. Area becomes a little more grey, however, when delineating a difference in branding from a difference in food.
Two restaurants originated by NextBite, the virtual brand partner, create an ideal case study for this issue. Crack’t and Hatch House are both digital breakfast sandwich shops. This means that their not so radical takes on the McMuffin are cooked and handed off to delivery drivers out of fulfillment - also known as “ghost” - kitchens. They’re not just both breakfast sandwich shops though, they’re the same breakfast sandwich shop. Both use the same bread, the same cheese, the same eggs. Both serve up five options, have one side - Farm Rich Whole Grain French Toast Sticks (which are precooked and frozen for the curious), and bolster incredibly similar cook assembly diagrams. Nextbite isn’t pulling wool over anyone’s eyes here: the company’s two plays are using an identical base sandwich.
The canvas of their offering is the same, so what, then, are the differences? What clears NextBite from getting the boot from UberEats? One word: Peppers. Hatch House is designed to appeal to a more upscale audience. An audience with a more mature palette than Crack’t. As a result of data mining and trend analysis, NextBite must have found that peppers are the best way to make a sandwich for kids into one for adults. Result being Hatch House’s addition of Cherry Peppers, Pepper Jack Cheese, and Chili Crisp Aoili to their offerings.
“Make everyday something special” says Hatch House’s front page. “Take your breakfast to the max” responds Crack’t’s. A clean farmhouse logo vs bright colors and bold text, Hatch House comes off as a mellow option to the parents of Crack’t customers; Customers who are likely ordering their “Hangover Helper” because it has a good name and they want hash browns in their sandwich after a late night.
Two ways of looking at this play: NextBite is simply getting the most out of their fundamental product or they’re deceiving customers by passing off the same food as separate restaurants. Either way, it's a clever move to attract the broadest audience whilst sidestepping the new delivery app rules around having unique menus. So too, this sandwich scenario demonstrates that a fine line separates brand and food. We eat with our eyes, and we pick restaurants with them too.