Food is local.
Screens are remote.
That is the whole division of labour. Anything that touches food happens in the kitchen. Anything that happens on a screen happens at our desk, seven days a week.
Eight lines of work.
Scope is set per venture in a service schedule. This is the full menu; your agreement names which of it applies.
Live order monitoring
Every platform watched during service. An unaccepted order caught before it auto-cancels, a stalled ticket escalated to the kitchen, a delivery failure picked up before the customer complains.
Availability & menu control
An item out of stock is switched off across every brand and every platform within minutes of the kitchen flagging it. Menus, descriptions, photography and modifiers maintained across the whole brand set.
Pricing & promotions
Prices reviewed against food cost and competing listings. Platform promotions and advertising scheduled, measured and switched off when they stop paying — which is where most operators quietly lose money.
Reviews & ratings
Every review answered, complaint patterns tracked by dish and by shift, and the findings fed back to the kitchen. Ratings drive placement, and placement drives volume.
Refunds & disputes
Platform refund claims challenged with evidence rather than accepted by default. This is a running battle and over a year it is worth real money.
Supplier & stock coordination
Orders placed against stock levels and forecast volume, deliveries reconciled to invoices, price changes tracked, and a second source kept warm on critical lines.
Compliance calendar
Permit and registration renewals, gas and electrical certification, extraction cleaning, pest control visits, insurance dates and food safety documentation, all tracked with escalation before deadlines.
Reporting
A monthly pack covering orders and revenue by brand and platform, average order value, food cost percentage, ticket times, ratings, refund rate and costs against plan, plus a quarterly review call.
A good head chef runs a kitchen well. Almost no head chef will answer reviews on four apps at 11pm, chase a platform for a refund credit, or notice that one brand's conversion dropped after a photo change. That work is continuous, it is screen work, and it is what we already do for a living.
What a desk cannot do.
Written into the agreement. In a kitchen this boundary is sharper than in any of our other ventures, because most of the operation is physical.
Six verbs
The desk can coordinate, verify, record, communicate, monitor and report.
- Watch every platform through service and intervene on exceptions
- Update menus, pricing, photography and availability
- Answer every review and handle every complaint
- Dispute refunds and chargebacks with evidence
- Place supplier orders and reconcile deliveries
- Track every certificate, renewal and inspection date
Anything physical, licensed or legally held
- Cooking, packing, cleaning or handling food in any way
- Carrying food safety responsibility for the premises
- Performing or certifying an inspection
- Signing a lease, licence or permit application on your behalf
- Giving legal, tax, immigration or food safety advice
- Deciding to dismiss a member of staff or close the kitchen
Each of these is mapped at setup to the head chef, a contractor or a licensed provider, with a documented handoff and a stall rule if it is not actioned.
What we can decide without asking you.
A schedule to the management agreement, so neither side is guessing when a fryer fails at 7pm your time.
| Decision | Akontec may act | Reserved to you |
|---|---|---|
| Routine spend | Up to an agreed per-item and monthly limit | Anything above the limit |
| Menu pricing | Within an agreed band | Changes outside the band |
| Switching an item or brand off | Yes, immediately, on quality or stock grounds | Retiring a brand permanently |
| Promotions & ad spend | Within an agreed monthly budget | Increasing the budget |
| Goodwill refund to a customer | Up to an agreed cap per order | Above the cap |
| Emergency equipment repair | Up to an agreed limit, immediately | Replacement or major works |
| Changing a supplier | Yes, against price and performance evidence | — |
| Launching a new brand | Model and recommend | Approve and fund |
| Hiring or dismissing staff | Source, screen, recommend | Decide |
| Legal proceedings | Never | Always |
Measured on what we control.
Measures are classified before they are agreed, because holding a desk to account for something it cannot influence produces theatre rather than performance.
Controllable
Entirely ours. Order acceptance rate, availability updated within target, review response rate, refund disputes lodged in time, reporting delivered on schedule, compliance deadlines met. Service credits attach to these.
Influenceable
We affect the outcome but do not decide it. Order volume, average order value, rating, food cost percentage, repeat rate. Reported and reviewed, not credit-bearing.
Observable
Reported because you need to see them, outside our control entirely. Platform commission changes, algorithm and placement shifts, ticket times, local competition, ingredient price movement, staff turnover.
Worth stating plainly: how long food takes to cook is a kitchen measure, not a desk measure. We report it, we analyse it by dish and shift, and we tell you what it is doing to your placement — but we cannot cook faster from Chennai.
See what the desk would cover for your kitchen
Scope, hours and reporting are set per venture. We map it on the first call.