How does one make income projections for a concession business? We recommend thinking about your food cost as a percent of the menu price. In your income projections, you can use this percentage to calculate your food cost for that month. Let’s say you are projecting to make $8,000 a month with a one item menu. You charge $8 for that menu item, and your food cost is 25% of the price: $8000 total sales for month * .25 = $2000 total food cost In an Income Projections template spreadsheet, there are a few fillable sections that allow you to account [...]

The quick answer is "yes!" The big questions are "should you?" and "do you want to?" Brand sustainability, time and capital investment to franchise your concept are big factors in making the decision. Is your food truck business successful and running like a well oiled machine? If you have success with regular vending locations, a solid event and catering history, expansion may be the next profitable step. Franchising may catch your attention as a way of increasing your income streams from one truck to two with less effort and expense. Franchising eliminates the day to day operational responsibilities of additional [...]

Every work place has a culture. BusinessDictionary.com defines it:  "organizational culture encompasses values and behaviors that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization," including "expectations, experiences, philosophy and values that hold it together." Some of the values to consider on a food truck include dress code, customer interaction and service values, owner-employee structure and relationships, and clear processes. Is there a how-to manual on the truck? Are employees trained? Is there room for feedback in the training and on the job? How does the staff interact with customers? Are staff comfortable with one another, with the [...]

Should you pay to be a vendor at an event? I'm still new to food trucking, and have been asked to participate in both no-fee and fee events. Here's how I think it through and make my decisions. What You Need To Know Before making this decision, I want all the event details:  how many people, how many food trucks or food vendors, what else is going on at the event, is it a benefit for a nonprofit, how long has this event been happening, is there a cancellation policy? I want to know how it went last year, and [...]

You might think that a mission statement is only something a big stuffy company would take the time to write. But this is not the case. Taking the time to think about the ultimate purpose of your business can help motivate you to continue to grow the business and provide a heightened sense of accomplishment. Mission Statement: What is it? According to Dictionary.com, a mission statement is defined as a formal summary of the aims and values of a company, organization, or individual. So essentially, why are you doing what you're doing... In this case in a small food business [...]

As more baby-boomers approach retirement, they begin to ask the question "What's next?" If you're thinking about to retirement and that starting a food truck would be a fun way to make some money, you're right. It can be a terrific way to supplement your income, get involved in serving your community, and build a business on your own terms. But make sure to do your research about the business model first! Consider this hypothetical exchange between a current food trucker and customer for some additional perspective on what building this type of work is involved in starting a food [...]

Probably THE definitive guide, if there ever was one, for an overall span of everything one needs to know in starting a Food Truck business, David Weber’s ‘The Food Truck Handbook’ seems to launch itself as the first go-to resource for every suggestion on the subject. ‘Start, Grow, and Succeed in the Mobile Food Business’ is the moniker given, and from what we can tell through reading through that’s exactly what it well help you do. The text is packed with 34 chapters on basically every subject one can think of regarding the startup, maintenance, running, and growth of a [...]

As has become so popular to say nowadays, Winter is coming, and for Food Truck owners particularly this shall signal big changes to their work environment, and very important decisions that must be made. We’ve already discussed what needs to be done if choosing to keep your truck in storage to ride out and ignore the poorer winter business Here, but what if you wanted to stay open in the cold season? It’s a difficult road, and even in some of the best cases (and again, this is mainly considering that you’re in a area that actually has cold, snowy [...]