Do you know the best thing about food trucking? Aside for being extremely convenient for both the customer and business owner. They are incredibly mobile, are accessible to customers as they are mostly found in areas with foot traffic, are relatively inexpensive, and word on the street is “they serve the best meals”.
As the name implies, food trucks are vehicles equipped with facilities for cooking and selling food. In less professional terms, its basically a restaurant on wheels.
It first came into existence during the Great Depression spanning from 2007 to 2009. During this period, a reduction in the labor force resulted in working hours going up and the heavy workload had worker’s backs bent. They were invented as a pocket–friendly, time reducing solution to working in an actual restaurant. As most restaurants weren’t hiring new workers, food trucks became the next best thing.
Over the years, the business has grown immensely in profitability and revenue — reaching up to 1.16 billion USD in 2021 alone. On the average, a food trucker makes between 40kUSD and 150kUSD annually. Food trucks have essentially become a part of the American culture evident in the making of movies with food truck themes. They also became increasingly popular as some food trucks were notorious for serving indigenous meals like taco.
For entrepreneurs, opening a food truck business might be the best option as it is less expensive and labour efficient. To start a food trucking business you’ll need capital in the range of 60000USD to 100000USD as opposed to the 500000USD required to set up a standard restaurant. Aside from being inexpensive, food trucks are also labor efficient as they need only 3-7 workers to run on full steam. On the other hand, a restaurant needs between 10 – 70 employees to function properly (depending on the size of the menu and other services offered).
As a budding food truck entrepreneur, it is important to note that you should fish for quality when hiring. You want to employ workers who can deliver quality work in the shortest possible time, this way, you can still deliver quality on your busiest days and even during the lunch rush.
Another benefit of having a food trucking business is how close it brings you to your target market. If you serve healthy food options, your best bet would be close to office building and if you serve fanciful desserts, your best bet would be the suburbs. Lastly, if your business serves mainly kids menu, you should consider parking around schools, specifically preschools and middle schools.
The Convenience of Food Trucking
Easy Accessibility
From the consumer’s perspective, Food trucks fulfill one of the most important marketing tenets : they’re easy to find. Because most food trucks are mostly located close to their target markets, they are easily accessible to their customers. This makes patronizing food trucks a breeze as customers could just rush to the spot and grab a quick bite before returning to work. Another important factor is that food trucks can drive from place to place making it possible to reach more customers. Although food trucks can drive around, they rarely do this. This is because from a business perspective, when they successfully build a decent customer base at a location, it’ll be unwise to leave that location for another. As at 2023, food truck companies are employing more strategies such as QR codes and in app orders to make purchase easier for their customers.
Serves Great meals
They are also notorious for serving great foods and cuisines. This is one of the driving factors behind their ever increasing consumer base. If you enter ”why do people love food trucks” into your google search bar you’ll find quickly that food trucks has earned a reputation for good meals.
Community Building
Another overlooked part of food trucks is the sense of personality it exudes. Due to a level of closeness to the chef and other customers, and because the customer base of a food truck company are usually small and homogeneous. A sense of community is formed between those who are frequents at such businesses and could even develop friendships that could transcend these communities . In time, customer interactions could help ease the pressure of their everyday activities providing them an avenue to fill their hearts and their stomachs all at once.
Aside from expensive dates and dinner meetings, food trucks are becoming the go to option for most consumers, and for lovers of more indigenous meals.