02 Aug Food Trucks Are More than Just a “Fad”
Food trucks are by no means a new way to serve quality food to consumers. However, gourmet food trucks, trucks that are equipped with on-board kitchens to make food from scratch, are continuing to grow in popularity and success over the past few years. In fact, food trucks have their own national holiday, national association, and communities across all 50 states began designating open landscapes as a “food truck parks” or “food truck festivals.”
With this growing demand to have food that is quickly made, easily accessible, and typically low prices, many chefs have been taking advantage of this consumer demand by investing in buying or renting a food truck as an easy way to for a brand new kick-start business or even for existing brands to spread their image.
Starting a food truck is significantly less expensive than opening a restaurant, which means that the risks at stake are minimized. From budgeting and branding your image to figuring out popular menu items, working from a food truck makes it easy to make adjustments or expand on new food industry ideas without a high risk of regression.
This is just the beginning of a revolutionary way for entrepreneur chefs and culinary artists to find significant leverage in launching a self-managed career in the food industry. In fact, some culinary schools are starting to adapt food truck internship programs for their students seeking entrepreneurship.
The American Culinary Federation reported a year ago on the Central New Mexico Community College’s movement to educate young chefs-in-training in how to jump start a chef career from a food truck by offering this internship program partnered between The Culinary Arts department and the Street Food Institute. This article on the ACF blog page, We Are Chefs, highlights the top benefits for students to be exposed to the type of environment a food truck offers in order to prepare them to become successful business owners. These skills include menu development, branding, working closely with others in tight spaces, cooking dishes to speed, serving customers face-to-face, and getting real work experience. Check out their full article here: https://wearechefs.com/2016/03/09/culinary-education-series-food-truck-internships/