What is Amazon up to now?
That was my first thought upon reading a LinkedIn update from Nick Avedesian, a longtime ghost kitchen and virtual food hall executive (and a speaker at The Spoon’s ghost kitchen virtual event in 2020). According to Avedesian, he has just taken a new position at Amazon titled Senior Program Manager, Industrial Launch & Execution, where he will “be supporting projects across our Fresh Food Productions and Amazon Grocery Logistics initiatives!”
Before Amazon, Avedesian held roles at several startups in the ghost kitchen and virtual restaurant space, most recently as the Head of Growth for Byte Kitchens, a startup that raised $6 million in 2022 to build out a digital food hall business. Before Byte, he was with Local Kitchens, which raised $40 million this June to expand its virtual food hall business. Prior to Local Kitchens, Avedesian was the Head of Development and Operations for DoorDash Kitchens.
So, Avedesian, who has spent the past five years overseeing the physical build-out of kitchen spaces tied to onboarding new restaurant brand partners for virtual food halls, is now going to work for Amazon to support projects across Fresh and grocery logistics. Could this mean Amazon plans to launch its own multi-tenant, multi-brand food halls? And if they do, how will those food hall restaurant brands be presented to customers?
While it’s still too early to be certain, I suspect there’s a strong possibility that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. One potential scenario is that Amazon might be planning a combination of in-venue buildouts for new restaurant menus and food offerings from licensed partners at Amazon Fresh stores—similar to what Wonder is starting to do at Walmart. Given Avedesian’s expertise in building both new and retrofit kitchen facilities for multi-brand food halls, I can easily imagine these kitchens, along with customer-facing food hall offerings, being implemented at Fresh locations and possibly other sites as well.
It’s not as if Amazon is entirely new to the idea of ghost kitchens or virtual restaurants. The company was an early investor in Deliveroo, a ghost kitchen and virtual brand pioneer. They are also an investor in Grubhub and recently announced that Amazon Prime users get free Grubhub+ and can order directly from within the app.
Naturally, one update isn’t a guarantee of a new project within Amazon, but there are other small indicators that something is afoot. One of Avedesian’s new coworkers is Kaitlin Garton, a project launch specialist at Amazon, as well as Gavin Worsdale, a manager for industrial launch and execution for Amazon’s worldwide grocery business division.
Amazon’s grocery business has been scrutinized closely as of late, partly because the company hit the brakes earlier this year on the expansion of its Fresh stores and the use of its Just Walk Out technology. However, the company has signaled that they are not getting out of or downsizing their food initiatives, and now you have to wonder if they see an opportunity in using their own kitchens in a virtual food hall business as a growth driver, both in-store (at Fresh and possibly Amazon Go storefronts) and perhaps in centralized kitchens (such as those that produce food for Whole Foods).
The company also has a robust grocery and food delivery business and could begin offering a variety of new home delivery options featuring meals from chefs or restaurant chains.
Whatever they’re up to, we’ll be keeping an eye on things. I’ve reached out to Avedesian to see if he has any specifics on what he’ll be working on, but given Amazon’s notoriously secretive ways, my guess is he’ll likely decline to comment.