Top Priorities For Anyone Setting Up A Food Truck Business

If you’re thinking about setting up a food truck business, you could be at the beginning of a successful money-making scheme. A lot of food trucks go on to become fully-fledged restaurants and even well-known brands. 

But what should your top priorities be if you’re looking to set up this type of business?

Understand regulations and red tape

As boring as it might sound, your number one priority when setting up this type of business should be to understand the various regulations and red tape that could get in your way once you get going. Food trucks involve parking vans in various locations and serving food, so there are certain requirements and standards you have to meet.

For example, if you plan to drive your truck between different cities depending on where you expect the most demand to be, you may find that rules differ per location and jurisdiction. Always check these in advance. You also need to think about the hygiene standards of various municipalities for mobile food kitchens. Again, you’ll need to ensure that you meet these so the inspectors don’t find you during orders.

Menu simplification

Another top priority should be menu simplification. Many food trucks try to offer everything to everyone, but this never really works. Instead, you should specialise in a particular type of food or set of meals so that you don’t end up overcomplicating your workflow.

Remember, most of the people you’re hiring won’t be professional chefs. Instead, there’ll be laborers who might be familiar with working in a kitchen in the past or simply doing the washing up. For that reason, you want to keep your processes simple and repeatable.

You also don’t want to be bringing huge amounts of different types of stock with you, because it can be difficult to store. Ideally, your fridge should be sectioned into three or four compartments where you can mass produce and create your food offering.

Payment processing

Payment processing on the road is a perennial challenge for any mobile business, including food trucks, but these days it’s becoming easier because of mobile credit card processing. All you need to do is find a merchant banking solution that’s willing to work with you.

As a food truck, you shouldn’t find this too difficult. Most genuine operations can get set up quite quickly. If you don’t have that, then all you usually need to provide is a few months of accounts from a professional accountant.

Secure your anchor locations

Finally, you’ll want to secure your anchor locations. These are the places where hungry people tend to congregate.

• Many food trucks go to corporate parks or downtown areas because they provide heavy, predictable weekday lunch crowds. There’s high competition, and there’s not much business after 2 p.m., but you can make a lot of money during the lunch hour.
• Another option is to go to breweries and cideries. These are great for evening crowds who want to have something to eat alongside their favourite craft beverages.
• Lastly, you might want to look at festivals and events. These offer massive concentrated foot traffic.