What it costs.
How long it takes.
We will not publish a single headline number, because there is not one. What we can do is show you every line you will have to fund, and tell you which ones people consistently underestimate.
Everything you will have to pay for.
Grouped into establishment, capital and running cost. Amounts vary enormously by city, site condition and menu, so we show the structure rather than invented figures.
| Line | Group | What drives the number |
|---|---|---|
| Company formation | Establishment | Filing fees, registered agent or office, constitutional documents |
| Professional fees | Establishment | Solicitor or attorney for the lease or licence, accountant setup |
| Permits & registration | Establishment | Health permit or food business registration, planning where required, trade waste |
| Brand & menu design | Establishment | Number of brands, identity, menu engineering and costing |
| Photography | Establishment | Dish count across all brands. Drives conversion more than anything else on a listing |
| Packaging development | Establishment | Testing that food survives 30 minutes in a bag, plus print set-up |
| Recruitment | Establishment | Head chef and kitchen team sourcing and screening |
| Akontec setup fee | Establishment | Percentage of the above, with a stated minimum |
| Extraction & fit-out | Capital | Zero in a commissary bay. The largest single line in a shell |
| Cooking line & refrigeration | Capital | Menu and peak volume. New or used by item |
| Utility upgrades | Capital | Gas, three-phase power, drainage. Quoted after survey, on the utility's timeline |
| Deposits | Capital | Lease or licence deposit, utility deposits |
| Opening stock | Capital | Food, packaging and consumables for the first weeks |
| Working capital | Capital | You buy ingredients before platforms pay out. This gap is real and is routinely ignored |
| Platform commission | Running | Deducted per order, commonly around 25–30% of order value |
| Food cost | Running | Menu design, portioning and waste control. The lever you control most directly |
| Packaging | Running | Per order, every order. Small unit cost, large annual number |
| Kitchen payroll | Running | Head chef plus line cooks. Fixed against variable orders |
| Rent or licence fee | Running | Site route. A commissary licence is usually more inclusive than a lease |
| Utilities | Running | Commercial kitchens are energy-hungry. Extraction runs whenever the line does |
| Maintenance & compliance | Running | Extraction cleaning, pest control, gas and electrical certification, grease collection |
| Akontec management fee | Running | Flat monthly, scoped to brand count and hours of cover |
What people consistently get wrong.
In roughly this order of how often it derails a plan.
The commission is not negotiable at your size
Plans built on a lower rate than the platform actually charges a new independent kitchen fail immediately. Model at the real rate, then work out whether the menu can carry it.
Extraction, not equipment, is the big number
In a shell fit-out the ventilation and suppression package frequently costs more than every appliance combined, and it is quoted only after survey. It is the main argument for a commissary bay.
Payroll is fixed, orders are not
A head chef and line cooks are paid whether forty or four hundred orders arrive. That is why the ramp period needs funding and why launching too many brands too early is dangerous.
You pay for food before you get paid for it
Platforms settle on a cycle. Ingredients are bought in advance. That working capital gap is a genuine line in the plan rather than a detail, and it widens as you grow.
A foreign-owned single-member US LLC has an annual federal information filing obligation together with a pro-forma corporate return, and it applies even with no tax payable and no trading. The penalty for missing it is substantial and applies per year. Every venture we set up leaves you with a compliance calendar carrying that date.
How long, realistically.
Ranges assume no unusual obstacle and prompt responses from you on documents. Every stage that depends on an authority, a landlord, a contractor or a utility company is outside our control and we say so.
| Route | Typical range to first order | What sets the pace |
|---|---|---|
| A — Commissary bay | Shortest | Bay availability and equipment lead times. Building services already exist and already comply |
| B — Multi-brand | As the site route | Brand and menu design run in parallel; extra brands add listing work, not build time |
| C — Own unit | Longest | Extraction works, utility upgrades, and the inspection queue — all on other people's timetables |
Preparation quality and pace
- Speed and completeness of every application and submission we prepare
- Menu and brand design, equipment specification, supplier negotiation
- Platform onboarding, listing build and technology configuration
- Weekly written progress against the dated stage plan
- How long a health authority takes, or the outcome of an inspection
- Whether a landlord consents to a flue route
- Utility company survey and upgrade timelines
- Contractor availability and equipment lead times
- Whether a bank opens the account, and when
- How quickly you return signed documents and identity evidence
Every proposal marks these dependencies explicitly. We would rather give you a wider range we can hold to than a confident date we cannot.
Get an itemised budget for your kitchen
We build the establishment cost, the capital requirement and the monthly running cost line by line, with every assumption written down.