A market research company named IBISWorld estimates that there will be over 26,200 food truck operations operating in the US in 2021. Between 2016 and 2021, the food truck industry added trucks at an annualized pace of around 7.5 percent, which was four times faster than the whole fast-food industry.

New food entrepreneurs who want to launch profitable small companies doing what they love—cooking delicious food for hungry people—often run food trucks.

The finest food truck owners develop and iterate new menus, consistently provide high-quality cuisine, and put in long hours to out-hustle rivals.

How to Start a Food Truck Business

Following a multi-step strategy has helped many food truck businesses prosper.

Here is a general outline of those processes in roughly chronological sequence; however, prospective food truck operators who want to launch as soon as possible will need to work on several pre-opening initiatives concurrently.

1. Find a Niche and Start Planning Your Menu

Finding their area of expertise is the first step for a new food truck vendor. Naturally, you’ll feel most comfortable sticking to the foods and methods you know best, but the real challenge is to find a niche inside that comfort zone that no other nearby food truck seems to fill—or fills as effectively as you think you can.

Contrary to traditional restaurants, food trucks cannot rely on ambiance or a sense of place to draw customers in and keep them coming back. They rely mostly on the caliber and inventiveness of their food, and to a lesser extent, their branding, to differentiate themselves.

Instead of the homogenized neighborhood bar, which is fun but an ultimately forgettable place to enjoy beers and burgers with friends, successful food trucks resemble the hole-in-the-wall establishment that serves one truly distinctive burger style you can’t get anywhere else in town.

Begin preparing your menu once you’ve decided on your niche. Exceeding your customers’ quality standards and guaranteeing that everything on your menu is available the majority of the time (preferably all of the time) are both significantly easier to achieve with a simple menu containing many common items.

Tips: If you are starting your food truck business then you might like to create a brand logo for your business and for this process you can find custom logo designers.

2. Develop a Detailed Business Plan for your Food Truck Business

After that, draft a business plan outlining your idea and include comprehensive financial projections for the first three years of operation based on your anticipated startup, ongoing, and revenue costs.

The majority of the following areas, if not all of them, ought to be covered in your business plan:

  • Fees and restrictions for local food truck licenses
  • The local health department’s regulations for inspections and safe food service
  • How your food truck is run
  • selecting the appropriate kind of food truck
  • Costs of equipment and trucks
  • Where will you do the cooking?
  • Parking your truck overnight
  • Pricing for ingredients and menu design
  • Parking, propane, insurance, and other overhead expenses for commercial services
  • The costs of creating websites and using social media are factored into your marketing strategies.

If this is your first time drafting a business plan, you can look at some business plan examples to discover how to move forward.

3: Line Up Financing

Thanks to your completed business plan, you’ll have a decent idea of your overall food truck startup costs, and consequently, your pre-revenue financing needs, as well as your short-term business credit (working capital) needs after you’re operational.

Despite the possibility that a bank or credit union will finance your entire beginning period by your company plan, it is more likely that you will need to juggle funds from a variety of sources, especially if this is your first venture into the food industry.

After you have a good sense of how much money you’ll need and how much it will cost in interest and fees annually, update your business plan.

4. Build a Digital Presence for your Truck

Start creating a web presence as soon as you’ve chosen a mobile dining concept and business name. Yes, you should do this before purchasing a truck. As long as you’re upfront about the fact that it’s still under construction, your web presence will help generate early buzz for your mobile food business and hold you accountable to see it through.

Start with social media profiles on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as well as listings on Google My Business and Yelp. As the launch day approaches, either create a website yourself or contact a nearby website design agency.

A simple to use website or blog with images of the food, a narrative of its history, and links to your social media profiles is all you need to start a successful food truck business. You can hire a local website design agency to build your website.

5. Get Licenses and Permits for Your Business

If your mobile eatery is not connected to an existing restaurant or food business, you will need to incorporate it in your home state (often as an LLC or partnership) and apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) with the Internal Revenue Service. According to Nolo, incorporation costs typically range from a few hundred dollars to less, depending on the state and type of business.

You must first submit an applicable license (business license) to the local agency or agencies in charge of food truck regulation (often the department of public health) and pass any necessary health and safety inspections before you can begin operating.

Depending on the regulations in your city, county, or state, you will require a food safety certification or food handler license. Pre-opening checklists for new food trucks may be provided by your local regulator or another local government body, like the Minneapolis mobile food vendor beginning guide. get your  business license research package details from the given link.

6: Locate a Territory or Residence for Your Truck

It’s not as simple as it might appear to distinguish between in-residence trucks that operate in a set place, like a food truck pod or “host” business, and roaming (pop-up) mobile eateries that visit several locations over a day or week.

Roaming trucks normally adhere to a steady schedule so their followers know where to find them, but residence trucks occasionally shift sites either freely or involuntarily over time.

However, if you want to leave your truck in the same location each day, you should start looking for a good area as soon as you can. If there aren’t any designated mobile food business lots in your city or region, contact local businesses and property owners who might be open to hosting food trucks or carts.

7: Access Overnight and Off-Day Parking – and a Commissary

This won’t be a problem if your food “truck” is a cart or trailer that occupies little room in your driveway or curbside parking place and doesn’t keep food overnight. Whether or whether your mobile restaurant is a full-size truck and stores food overnight, there is a strong possibility you will need parking during the day and at night.

Find out if a commissary is necessary for your area and look up the rules for food trucks. Commissaries allow you to store and prepare products in a secure, monitored space that is regularly inspected by the health department. It might be possible for you to find a shared commercial kitchen with designated truck parking or a food truck pod with long-term inhabitants to help you with your concerns with nighttime parking.

8: Find and Buy a Cart or Truck

If your launch capital is limited and you intend to solely offer basic items without an onboard kitchen, such as frozen sweets or pastries, think about starting with a food cart or trailer that you can tow behind a light truck or SUV. While they are not inexpensive, full-size trucks are more expensive than these vehicles. At SLE Equipment in the Nashville region, a brand-new concession trailer measuring 8.5 feet by 17 feet costs roughly $25,000.

A full-size truck with an onboard kitchen comes in three different configurations, each with a different ballpark price range, according to Roaming Hunger:

  • Purchase a used truck with an existing kitchen for $50,000 to $100,000
  • Purchase a new truck and add a new kitchen for $75,000 to $100,000
  • A new truck with a new kitchen $100,000 and $175,000

9: Check Your Cart or Truck

A food truck’s insurance is substantially more expensive than a passenger car’s. With a business auto coverage, you’ll need to ensure not only the vehicle itself but also the kitchen and food storage equipment within. If you have employees, workers’ compensation insurance is essential.

You’ll need adequate liability coverage in the unlikely but potentially disastrous event that your restaurant or its generator catches fire or explodes, resulting in significant property damage, accidents, or fatalities.

10: Expand into Catering

In the food truck sector, there’s more to it than merely setting up shop in busy areas for lunch. Numerous merchants also prosper by providing services for private and semi-public occasions including weddings, business parties, and youth sporting events. Trucks are paid to reserve their time at these events or if attendees are fed for free, a set quantity of food.

The key to growing your catering business is having a strong online presence that includes social media profiles that are prominent and active as well as a website that lists your catering services. Additionally, you should network with people in the local business, event planning, and government services sectors.

Final Word

Much work is required to operate a food truck, as is the case with any small business. The best food truck owners are those who outwork and out-market their rivals, especially in the beginning when they lack the advantages of name recognition.

No matter if you intend to open up a business in a bustling metropolis known for its food trucks or a sleepier town that’s just getting started, be ready to achieve whatever success and notoriety you can.