By sector / Dark kitchens
A dark kitchen hub packs several operators into one building, often sharing extraction, waste and communal areas. The cleaning is straightforward; the question of whose job it is frequently is not.
Many brands, one building
Delivery-only kitchens have grown fast — roughly one in seven food businesses on the major platforms in England now operates this way. Many rent space in multi-tenant hubs, and that shared footprint is where responsibility gets murky.
Each operator still has to register with the local authority and still earns its own Food Hygiene Rating, even where several virtual brands run from one unit. That much is clear. What is often not written down clearly is who cleans the shared parts: the communal extraction, the areas both tenants pass through, the waste and grease-trap handling that a service charge may or may not cover. In a shared kitchen, if the operator before you has not cleaned properly, that is your problem to inherit before you can start.
Most hubs let space on licences or FRI-style leases with a service charge, and communal cleaning, waste and pest control are sometimes bundled and sometimes not. The extraction is the sharp end: where a duct serves more than one unit, the responsibility for keeping it within grease limits needs to be pinned down in the agreement rather than assumed.
What a deep clean can and cannot settle
A deep clean of your own unit is clear-cut and worth doing. It resets your food-contact surfaces and equipment, documents your condition for your own FHRS visit, and gives you a clean line where a previous operator left a mess.
The one thing a clean cannot do is decide who owns the shared duct. In a shared kitchen it is not always clear who is responsible for hygiene in the communal areas day to day, and that ambiguity is the sector's recurring weakness — EHOs struggle to track multi-brand sites, and cross-contamination and inconsistent cleaning follow from unclear ownership.
A deep clean is necessary, but it is not sufficient. It cleans your unit and evidences your condition; it cannot settle who is contractually responsible for the shared duct and the communal areas. That is a licence or lease question, answered in the agreement and with the site operator, not by any cleaning visit. Get the responsibility split written down, then the clean does its job against a clear boundary.
Questions
Your own unit is yours. The communal areas and any shared extraction depend on the licence or lease and the service charge, which is why the split needs to be written down. It is often left unclear, and that is the main risk.
Yes. Each operator registers with the local authority and earns its own rating, even where several virtual brands trade from one unit. Every trading name should be linked to the registered business.
Your cookline, surfaces, refrigeration, the gaps behind equipment and any extraction dedicated to your unit, with a documented before-and-after for your rating. On survey we also flag where your responsibility ends and the shared system starts.
It can clean it if that is agreed, but it cannot decide who owns the job. Responsibility for a duct serving several units is a contractual question for the licence, lease and site operator.
Deep clean before you cook. It resets condition, removes any harbourage the previous operator left, and documents a clean baseline for your first inspection under your own registration.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
We clean your unit to a documented standard and can advise on the shared-system questions, so you know exactly what your clean does and does not cover.