Major fast food brand Oporto’s ‘dark kitchens’ revealed
A sneaky move from the national fast food chain that has customers paying more has been noticed by Aussies.
Dark kitchens have been operating out of dozens of Oporto stores across Australia for several years, selling food under another name at higher prices.
The major Portuguese-style chicken chain confirmed to news.com.au its “virtual-only food concept” Basted Wings & Burgers was launched during Covid as a “chance to experiment, test, and adapt quickly, with the opportunity to trial bold new flavours and formats”.
Dark kitchens – also sometimes called a virtual restaurant or ghost kitchen – are businesses that sell their food exclusively through delivery.
A spokesperson for Oporto said the Basted brand was being “phased out” over the past 12 months, and would officially close in August.
There were 100 Basted restaurants listed on Menulog’s website this week, showing operations in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Perth, Newcastle, Wollongong, the Gold Coast and Bundaberg.
Cross checks for many of the addresses registered for these businesses match the location of local Oporto restaurants.
In the Harbour City, Oporto’s hometown, addresses for the Bondi Beach, Enmore, Oxford St, Kings Cross and Waterloo restaurants matched Basted locations on delivery apps.
An Instagram page, bearing the same Basted branding as used on Uber Eats and Menulog, published its first post on December 8, 2021. It last published a post in February, 2023.
One Sydney outlet for Basted advertised itself online as a “a burger joint that prides itself on a diverse and indulgent menu”.
An inspection of menu pictures for all three of Basted’s burgers – the Schnitt Faced and Cheeky Cheese & BBQ burgers and their “legendary spicy burger” the Red Eye – show they appear to be made using Oporto’s crispy chicken strips.
Prices for the latter two burgers alone are each set at $20.25 on food delivery apps, whereas customers could buy a regular double Bondi burger meal from Oporto on Uber Eats for $22.
The Schnitt Faced Burger has a marked price of $16.95.
Basted’s spicy popcorn chicken, sold for $11.95, also appears to be a similar product as Oporto’s chicken bolas. Customers can buy a regular size bolas pack for $7.80 on Uber Eats.
Basted also lists loaded fries and a variety of chicken wings on its menu.
Oporto acknowledged that “while some ingredients were shared with Oporto”, Basted offered a “premium virtual offering, with a distinctly American hearty food style menu with unique menu creations, sauces and flavour profiles with different portions”.
“The pricing reflected the distinct positioning and product,” the spokesperson said.
Oporto did not respond to questions regarding why the connection between Oporto and Basted had not previously been advertised.
Its spokesperson said Basted helped “connect with new customers who may not have engaged with the brand previously, expanding its reach during a challenging time for the industry”.
“Over the past 12 months, Basted has been slowly phased out, and the platform will officially close at the end of trade on Sunday 10th August.
“Our focus is now on driving customers to our physical stores where they can get the full Portuguese experience, and we can deliver more value for our franchise partners.”
One customer took to Reddit last year after ordering food from a Basted only for it to arrive wrapped in Oporto packaging.
“The ‘schnitzel’ burger was literally two oportos (sic) chicken strips with lettuce, cheese and Mayo,” they said.
“Chips were identical to Oportos (sic).
“I complained and got a refund.”
One person weighed in to say they spent time investigating Basted’s source to find it was “just Oporto with some different options”.
“It’s annoying too, you can’t order it for pick-up or order it in store at Oporto,” they said.
“Also it was annoying because their options for burgers were actually quite nice and should just be on the Oporto menu.”
Dr Andy Lee, from the University of Queensland’s School of Business, said food companies might have a separate “division” that specialises in dark or ghost kitchen operations.
“This division could be offered as a service to franchisees as a way to boost their overall revenues,” he said.
“As Oporto is known for its Portuguese-style grilled chicken, offering burgers under a different name (Basted) allow for product diversification without diluting the core brand identity.”
Dr Sisi Jia from the University of Sydney said she and colleagues from the UK have been studying dark kitchens in Australia.
Dr Jia noticed the correlation between Basted and Oporto after scraping the data from Uber Eats and comparing it to Google Maps data.
“We found a lot of Based food outlets (had) no physical food outlet locations,” she said.
“And then when we looked into it, we found that all the menu items look very similar to Oporto.”