How to Bring a Food Truck to Your Business

Hire A Food Truck HERE

Finding food trucks that can roll up to your business is easy! All you need is to know your options (we’ve got over 20,500 of them) and the reason why you’re looking to bring a food truck out in the first place.

This short guide will explain it all. We cover everything you need to do based on our more than 14 years of experience working with food vending businesses of all shapes and sizes. Just click on the right use case for your business:

1. Food Truck Catering – If you’re hosting an event, then food truck catering is the way to go.

2. Set Up a Food Truck Program – If you need to feed employees on a regular basis, then a food-service program is the best bet.

3. Bring Food Trucks to a Business Park – If you’re part of a larger business park, consider these larger options.

Have questions? Head to the the bottom of the article to submit them to us. We appreciate hearing from our community!

Food Truck Catering for Your Company

If you’re looking to bring a food trailer, truck, or cart to your company for an event you’re hosting—read on…

We’ve been helping companies with mobile catering for over a decade. Here’s what you need before looking for food trucks:

1. An event time and location – Assuming the location is your business address, then having a good idea of the date and time (even if it’s somewhat flexible) is necessary.

2. How many eaters you expect – If you’re not sure, round up to avoid the truck running out of meals.

3. Your budget – Know your budget either as a whole or per person. For average catering prices, read our article on how much will a food truck cost.

4. What types of cuisine you want – This will also influence the cost of bringing a food truck to your business. A pizza truck will typically be more expensive than a taco truck. If you’re limited by budget, bring out an ice cream truck as a special treat.

 

How to book a food truck

Step 1: Get all your event details finalized (date, location, number of eaters, and budget).

Step 2: Fill out your event info on the Food Truck Catering page.

Step 3: From there, just follow the instructions and you’ll get food truck options in your area with catering packages and pricing attached.

Step 4: All you’ll have to do is pick your favorite package and check out! We’ll guarantee the truck will be there and hold your funds in escrow to make sure your event goes smoothly (and deliciously).

If requested, we can check that our mobile vendors have licenses and permits to operate in your area.

grilled cheese sandwich for film production on-set catering

Set Up a Food Truck Program

Many customers we’ve worked with want to bring a food truck to their business on a long-term basis. They are either looking to engage employees, find a flexible food-service solutions, or both.

We call this setting up and managing an “end-to-end food truck program” or a “schedule.” In our experience, we’ve found that the following are important for any business or property owner to consider when starting a food program:

1. Reliability – It’s important to find reliable vendors to come out and serve.

2. Variety – The same truck every day will eventually get less business. Eaters love, and expect, a variety of options.

3. Flexibility – It’s important for food service operations to be flexible. Not only will this allow the service to become better over time, but it will also allow you to pause when needed.

 

How much will a food truck program cost?

The answer depends on your goals. With some of our larger clients, the entire program is cost-neutral (free) because the food trucks make enough money through onsite sales. In this case we create a profit-sharing deal with our food truck partners that covers the cost of managing the program.

With other business clients, we set up weekly food truck schedules and get paid a flat fee or a per truck placement fee.

Some companies will also want to subsidize a portion of the meal costs for their employees. In this case we work directly with the owners and vendors to make the subsidy simple for the eaters – using coupons or online ordering options.

 

Daily/weekly food truck schedules

Another important aspect of cost is how often you need a food truck vendor onsite. Daily service is more complex than weekly service. The same goes for multiple trucks, or multiple locations.

Because we’re an international company, with over 20,500 vendors in our network in both the US and Canada, there aren’t many places that we can’t provide service.

 

Next Steps

Head over to our business page and fill out your details. One of our team members will contact you ASAP to to get the process started and answer any questions you have.

Bring In A Food Truck

Getting Food Trucks for Business Parks and Complexes

Here are a few way to attract food trucks to come out and sell food to your employees or tenants:

1. Get other businesses in the park involved – If you’re a business owner inside of a larger business park, reach out to other businesses or the property owner.

If you want the food truck to sell food to your employees, increasing the number of potential customers will greatly increase your chances of a truck coming out.

2. Ensure that the truck gets at least 100 orders – Food truck owners are very selective when it comes to vending opportunities. A rule of thumb is to ensure that they get 100 orders at the location/event.

For a location with less than 500 employees, it may be hard to hit that number unless you subsidize the meals. This is because, on average, about 20% of potential customers in any location will go out and order from a food truck.

3. Offer a “Minimum Guarantee” – For a lunch truck, a good minimum guarantee will be between $1,200 and $2,000 for that shift. This ensures that the food truck will not lose money and provides a lot of peace of mind for both you and the food truck business. This means that the food truck won’t cancel because a better gig has turned up at the last minute.

How to Find Local Food Trucks

Use Roaming Hunger…it’s the easiest way out there. If you’re looking to bring in a caterer for a single event, start with our Workplace Catering page.

To set up a food truck program that includes sourcing multiple trucks and running a food-service operation, start at our Business Park page.

Have More Questions?

Please let us know what questions you have about bringing a food truck to your business. We’ll respond in a timely fashion: