How do you become a food truck vendor?

Answer 1

The first two steps to becoming a food truck vendor are research and self-assessment.

Research:

• city, county and state laws and regulations relating to mobile foodservice
• including health inspection requirements, conducting business restrictions, truck permit parameters
• competitive research on the current trucks operating in your trade area

Self-Assessment:

• honestly assess the skills that you, or your business partner or team possess
• determine the gaps that you and your team have
• determine what outside expertise you need to fill in the gaps you have personally or as a team

The next step is to generally determine the type of food you want to serve, and then create a product flow map, starting with how/where you buy your ingredients, including packaging and supplies, and where you park the truck when it is not operating...the flow chart then continues through food prep, storage, truck route, service execution, refueling the truck, replenishing the truck with food/supplies mid-shift, and then closing down the truck for the day, how it gets cleaned, and where it sleeps.

This flow chart should allow you to "see" several areas where you don't have it all figured out. Now more research and planning is necessary to develop the flow chart to contain answers so that you can have viable plan to operate the truck.

Selecting a truck manufacturer is like selecting any other vendor...research, checking references, validating abilities, obtaining bids, and making a final selection.

You can approach the Truck Business from the mom/pop perspective, buy a used truck, get the basic permits, cook out of your home, and buy supplies at CostCo. That works for the 1-truck, small biz approach. If you envision created a fully branded mobile restaurant that delivers a great guest experience, on a solid business model, and the ability to grow and scale up to multiple trucks and/or multiple cities, then your next step after doing the basic research and self-assess is to contact a professional restaurant consulting firm, such as Vucurevich Simons Advisory Group or blackboxbusinessplans for detailed guidance.