Requirements For Setting Up A Food Truck Business

Mobile food businesses have received much traction over the last few years and can be located almost anywhere – from stadiums, pop-up markets, weddings, concert venues, and more. The food truck sector caters to the high demand for delicious and unique cuisines representing different cultures across the globe.

Setting up a food truck business can be a daunting but lucrative endeavor. Offering a diverse cuisine menu means you’ll appeal to a wider audience base, especially if you frequent different high-traffic locations. However, is a passion for making foodie delights sufficient, and are there shortcomings in converting your culinary skills into a fully-fledged enterprise?

Although there are various pros and opportunities to establish a food truck enterprise, much preparation and work is required, from setting up the food truck to the day-to-day business operations. To assist you in making the process easier, we’ve compiled a guide on how to set up a mobile food truck business. We’ll look at the avenues you need to cover before beginning your journey, from food truck regulations to getting hold of your truck and developing your food truck business plan.

Food Truck Regulations

Before investing your hard-earned money into the mobile street food scene, it’s essential that you have a proper grasp of food truck regulations. Not adhering to these guidelines can result in exorbitant fines, which can be detrimental to your blossoming business. Let’s first look at some key rules and regulations you need to be aware of before setting up a food truck.

Can I park my food truck anywhere?

Some entrepreneurs presume that as long as they have done their due diligence and obtained the proper licenses, there are no restrictions on where they can park their food vans. Well, this isn’t the case, as every city and town has allotted areas where food vendors are permitted to run their businesses. With regard to selling street food in an open space, there are generally three different categories of street:

• Licensed streets: You will require a Street Trading Licence to be able to sell food from your van.

• Consent streets: You will require a Street Trading Consent before you can sell food from your van.

• Prohibited streets: Selling from your food truck is not allowed on these streets. They tend to be unsafe or impractical locations for establishing your business, like main roads. Trading on a prohibited street is an offense and can result in hefty fines and, in some instances, results in the revocation of your license.

Contact your local council to check whether you require a Street Trading Licence or Street Trading Consent. The rate of these licenses also varies depending on your local council, so you should review this beforehand and consider it when planning your budget.

What licenses do you require for a food truck?

There are different permits and licenses you are required to trade and operate from your food truck legally. Before setting up a mobile street food business, make sure to obtain the following licenses and registrations.

• Food business registration: Regardless if you are establishing a food truck business from the ground up or acquiring an already established food truck business, you will have to register the food enterprise at least 28 days before you start operations.

• A Street Consent Licence or Street Trading Licence: As aforementioned, you will require a Street Consent Licence or Street Trading Licence if you want to run your business in a public area. To begin this application process, reach out to your local council.

• A driving license: Since you are operating a mobile food business, you will obviously require a driving license to be compliant with traffic regulations. However, the specific driving license you require is contingent on the size of your van.

• Food premises approval: If you want to sell any sort of dairy, eggs, fish, or meat, you will need to undergo council inspection to get approval. You won’t require council approval if you want to establish a vegan food menu.

• A premises and personal license: If your business model includes selling alcoholic drinks, or you want to sell drinks and hot food between 11 pm and 5 am, you will require both a personal and premises license.

After beginning operations from your food truck, the local council you operate from will plan a food hygiene evaluation within 6 months. A scale of 1-5 will be used to rank you based on your business’s level of food safety and hygiene, including how you handle food, prepare food, and store food, in addition to the cleanliness of your food van. You will require the following compiled to pass your inspection test:

• Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan: This is crucial for your food truck to ascertain that it satisfies all the requisite food safety management caveats. To learn more regarding the HACCP, visit the Food Standards Agency website. If you don’t have an adequate HACCP, you will fail an inspection automatically.

• Risk assessment: Draft a comprehensive risk assessment plan to pass your evaluation. Your risk assessment should encompass all the potential hazards and risks you may encounter and measures in place for avoiding them.

What certificates do you require?

You need to obtain some essential health and safety certificates before setting up a food truck business. Essential certificates to acquire include:

• Commercial Gas Safety certificate: Also referred to as a Gas Safety Record form, this certification is a legal prerequisite for any commercial building owner, including food trucks. You are obligated to conduct yearly inspections of your gas appliances to ascertain they fulfill industry standards. You can receive accreditation from any registered Gas Safe engineer.

• Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) certificate: Similar to the Commercial Gas Safety accreditation, you are mandated to conduct an LPG inspection yearly if you use a liquified petroleum gas stove. You risk having your food truck business closed by not having this certificate.

• Portable appliance testing (PAT): This test ascertains your electrical devices are safe for usage. Specialists recommend that this test be conducted every 6 – 12 months. A qualified PAT tester can assist you with this service.

• Food hygiene certificate: Although this isn’t a prerequisite for legally trading or preparing food, it is highly advised that anybody establishing a food truck business receives at least a Level 2 Food Hygiene and Safety accreditation. This certificate shows both your clients and the council that you are serious when it comes to food hygiene.

Once you have a grasp of food truck regulations, you can get into the nitty-gritty of setting up your mobile business for growth. There are various steps and considerations to make when setting up a mobile food business. Let’s have a look at some of them.

Create a Food Truck Concept

Due to their restrictions, food trucks have limited menu options. For this reason, each item you include in your menu has to be a winner. It is crucial to narrow down on a concept that is uncomplicated so that you can come up with a menu list that resonates with your target niche. Your food truck concept plays a significant part in whether your mobile street food business will fail or succeed.

The first step in creating a viable food truck concept is to lay out what you have and what you can do. Is there a special type of dish you are skilled at making? What can your food van produce with the available space? What does your target market want? You can test your food truck concepts in the market to check whether they will work.

• Evaluate your target market: Young adults and children are the likely target group to buy food from mobile food vans. Other than discovering more about food truck clients in your locale, what more can you learn to understand them better? On top of knowing about their payment means and how frequently they eat out, knowing how they engage with brands is also important. You can even carry out a survey to learn what kinds of food vans they visit or their opinion on what may be missing from your food truck.

• Study your competition: You will need to understand your competition to refine your food truck business concept. Is there a gap in the market? Is the mobile market scene already saturated? Investigate the prices other food trucks charge, as well as know the sort of food trucks you’ll be rivaling. Other than using their advertising strategies as a template, you’ll learn a lot from their failures and victories.

• Do a SWOT evaluation to understand the field: A SWOT analysis looks at your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Use the results you obtain to come up with a new approach to boost sales and increase profits, depending on how you contrast with your competitors.

From the information provided above, you should have a picture of what you need to do to set up a food truck business. Like any other business, starting this venture is risky, but with passion for food, commitment, and hard work, you can grow a successful business. Provide top-notch customer services and high-quality dishes for you to build a loyal following.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes