News

Hotel Cloud Kitchen Startup Matbakhi Launches In Saudi Arabia

The platform will help Saudi Arabian hotels tap into a $4.71 billion online food delivery market as the Kingdom pursues ambitions of becoming a Top 10 tourist destination.

Published

4 years ago

December 20, 2022

Nour Nasir

Matbakhi

Matbakhi, a food technology startup, has become the latest addition to Saudi Arabia’s booming catering sector after setting up a headquarters in Riyadh.

Matbakhi’s premise is simple yet innovative: The company helps hotels turn their unused kitchen spaces into revenue generators, upgrading their menus with fresh, creative offerings from young, up-and-coming local chefs. The idea is to give local talent a platform and help chefs build their brands, while simultaneously offering a delivery service to bring the meals to different neighborhoods.

“The way food is conceptualized, sourced, cooked, delivered, and consumed is evolving by the minute in line with the preferences of highly aware and increasingly knowledgeable consumers. Keeping these customers at the heart of everything we do, Matbakhi aims to make the food you want accessible and convenient to order, and ensure that it is delivered to your doorstep in minutes while you’re still looking forward to that taste and experience,” says Joe Frem, co-founder and CEO of Matbakhi.

Also Read: Egypt’s Tech Startup OneOrder Raises $3M In Funding

Matbakhi’s cloud kitchens are effectively a plug-and-play service for hotels. The company offers everything from procurement to staff, helping to raise the profile of local chefs while enhancing the revenue and marketing reach of the hotels hosting the service.

The company’s novel business model will create unique opportunities within Saudi Arabia’s buoyant hospitality sector, especially as the Kingdom plans to become a Top 10 global tourist destination by 2030.

With help from Matbakhi, the hotel food and beverage sector could be transformed entirely, blending seamlessly into the online food delivery market, which, according to a report from Innovius Research, is predicted to be worth a staggering $8.8 billion in value by 2028.

News

Abu Dhabi’s Robot Kitchen Is Serving Up Biryani, Not Burgers

Circus SE wants to put a tiny automated factory inside the buildings where Gulf residents live and work, bypassing part of last-mile delivery.

Published

6 days ago

October 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

abu dhabi's robot kitchen is serving up biryani not burgers

Circus SE

The most telling thing about a new autonomous kitchen now running in Abu Dhabi’s Marina Square is what it won’t cook:

“We don’t do fast food,” says Nikolas Bullwinkel, Founder and CEO of Circus SE. “We’ve actively decided not to build a machine that can only do burgers”.

Instead, the CA-1 system is built around pot-based cooking: curries, pastas, soups and rice dishes. After experimenting with highly personalized recipes, Circus deliberately leaned back toward recognizable food. “We’re going with a chicken biryani because you know it,” Bullwinkel says of the AED 40 dish.

circus se ca-1 robot system

The Germany-based robotics and food technology company operates across eight countries, and Abu Dhabi is its first deployment outside Europe. More locations are expected there and in Dubai.

In Germany, its units can be placed in supermarkets, gas stations, airports and hospitals. In the Gulf, Bullwinkel wants them inside residential and office buildings, replacing some of the complexity of last-mile delivery. “We’re basically bringing a very tiny factory a few square meters into your building,” he says. Catering company Royal Prestige supplies the ingredients and knowledge of local tastes.

The CA-1 manages up to 36 refrigerated ingredient silos alongside automated induction cooking, robotic plating and a self-cleaning dishwasher. Two robotic arms move ingredients through the system with minimal human intervention. It can produce up to 120 hot meals an hour, and a meal such as rice and curry can take around three to four minutes.

Also Read: Ooredoo Qatar’s 5G+ Network Is Built For Machines As Much As People

Five cameras and multiple sensors monitor heat, temperature and consistency, an attempt to approximate what a chef perceives. “You can hear something gets burned, you can smell it, you can see it at some point,” Bullwinkel says. CircusOS, the company’s operating system, adjusts recipes in real time.

You might think of the platform as a threat to kitchen staff, but Bullwinkel frames Circus as a way for chefs to develop recipes and distribute them at scale. With that being said, rising labor costs and shortages are also part of his case for automation.