Supply Chain Innovation in the Catering Industry: An Assessment of the Cost-Effectiveness and Sustainability of the Central Kitchen Model

Abstract

With the trend of mechanization in the catering industry, the demand for scale, industrialization and standardization of the catering supply chain has increased. As an emerging catering supply chain model, the central kitchen has great potential to meet the demand for mechanization. Central kitchens are an effective way to solve the catering industry's problems in scaling up operations. However, in practice, many issues still need to be researched and explored in the central kitchen based on the enterprise perspective in the context of the Chinese catering industry. This paper collects and analyzes data from Chinas restaurant industry and Shuhais business data to determine whether central kitchens positively impact supply chain management and performance improvement in the context of Chinas restaurant industry. It is found that the central kitchen model effectively reduces supply chain costs, ensures product quality and improves supply chain synergy and integration, which is a theoretical guide and practical revelation for the supply chain decision-making of catering enterprises and the model design of supply chain service enterprises.