Business Trend: Gourmet Food from a Food Truck
One business trend that continues to grow is serving gourmet food from a food truck. They’re not just for fairs and carnivals anymore. In the past few years, restaurants, caterers, and ambitious young chefs trying to make a name for themselves have been taking advantage of food trucks, food carts, and kiosks, because:
- The novelty for consumers of getting great, adventurous, and even gourmet food from a truck makes it more of a sought-after “event” rather than just a meal
- You as the chef and server have more flexibility in menus and pricing, since overhead is usually low, you have fewer regulations in many cases, and you can even decide how permanent or temporary to make your food truck or food cart experience
- Since overhead is low, and you can go where the clients are instead of waiting for them to come to you, there is the potential to make a decent profit
- It’s a great way to get the word out about your catering business or even yourself, if you’re a young chef, and let everyone sample your food without the major investment of their own time and money that a sit-down restaurant requires
For caterers specifically, a food truck or food cart is a fantastic way to get more catering gigs. It’s basically an opportunity for the public to do a paid tasting with you. You’d be amazed at the relationships you can build one-on-one within the community, when someone tastes something great that they get from you personally from a food truck. That relationship, coupled with a great food experience, can go a long way in making you first in a person’s mind when he or she has an event to cater or when they want to recommend a caterer.
Some caterers are going a step further and actually bringing the truck to events, as talked about in this article from Entrepreneur Magazine. Caterers let the clients choose the menu, then they prepare it and serve it from the truck on-site.
Not to mention that having a food truck, cart or kiosk emblazoned with your logo is always good for branding.
Having a food truck or a food cart you can take to downtown businesses on a busy weekday, or even a kiosk you can rent in a high-traffic mall, business park, or even hospital, to name a few potential-filled areas, can go a long way in expanding where your business can go. It gives you greater options for serving, for catering and traveling, and for making money.