Now you can have your viral Emily Mariko Salmon Bowl, and eat it too, thanks to TikTok. The video-sharing platform announced last Friday that it will be partnering with Virtual Dining Concepts, a ghost kitchen service, to deliver viral meals on the social media app right to your door.
The new venture, dubbed TikTok Kitchen, will be run by Virtual Dining Concepts, a company that runs the ghost kitchens behind celebrity-created brands such as Mariah’s Cookies, Buddy V’s Cake Slice, and Guy’s Flavortown Kitchen. Ghost Kitchens — which are food-prep operations with no wait-staff, no dining room, and no restaurant-going patrons —grew quickly following the pandemic, as food delivery services saw a huge increase in usage.
With over 1 billion users, TikTok has provided a space for a wide range of creators to post videos featuring recipes and food hacks since its inception in 2018. The culinary side of the social media app, which has been dubbed “FoodTok,” is known for food hacks, recipes, and kitchen tutorials that have gone viral.
“These culinary trends have made the food space explode,” said Virtual Dining Concepts in a statement. “With TikTok’s constant support through initiatives on the platform and via their creators, TikTok Kitchen will always be relevant and exciting.”
TikTok Kitchen will allow local restaurants to recreate TikTok trends and make a profit, without their in-person dining and pick-up options being affected. By taking advantage of the ghost kitchen model, restaurateurs can cook the menu items in their restaurant’s kitchen space, then send it out via delivery services. Alternatively, restaurateurs may rent from a landlord at a pre-existing culinary facility; from there, they can market their brand (in this case, TikTok Kitchen) onto a food delivery app and send out orders from the rented kitchen space.
TikTok Kitchen, which will be delivered via Grubhub, will feature a dynamic menu that changes quarterly to reflect food trends on the app. The inaugural lineup will include: feta pasta, pasta chips with dip, corn ribs, and a smash burger.
According to the VDC website, the menu will allow restaurants across the country to opt-in and become a market partner while offering dishes that “celebrate food trends made famous by TikTok creators.”
“Proceeds from TikTok Kitchen sales will go to both support the creators who inspired the menu item, and to encourage and assist other creators to express themselves on the platform,” said VDC in a statement. The company also claims that the model will boast up to $500+ in additional daily profits for the restaurant owners that operate this delivery-only brand.
However, the names of the viral dish creators will not be on the TikTok Kitchen Menus, according to Bloomberg News.
“It isn’t clear how TikTok will determine the authorship of certain viral dishes—which sometimes belong to more than one person—or what revenue it expects to generate and distribute,” wrote Kate Krader for Bloomberg.
While VDC claims to be adamant about “celebrating” creators, “representatives for the company and for TikTok did not immediately respond to queries about how the dishes’ creators would be identified and paid,” The Washington Post reports.
The company initially plans to open 300 locations and expects to operate as many as 1,000 by the end of 2022, according to Business Insider.