Image Source: vgritsfoodtruck.com
V-Grits is a food truck from Louiseville that serves vegan food. It recently announced that it has plans to go nationwide using a meal subscription service that will provide subscribers with recipes they can create on their own in their kitchens after ordering the ingredients from V-Grits. V-Grits plans to ship food ingredients to all their subscribers ; food ingredients that they make in their commissary. According to the owner of V-Grits, Kristina Addington, the plan is to start local and slowly expand the subscription service.
Yes, the food truck business has started to evolve into something very unique and V-Grits is not the only one that has grown.
Another food truck that has decided to go nationwide is Olive Garden. This decision was made last 2015 to help promote their new breadstick sandwiches. Before their decision to go nationwide, Olive Garden would travel to Boston, New York, Salt Lake City, Orlando, Philadelphia and Phoenix. They are known for their meatball sandwiches and chicken parmesan sandwiches. Their national tour was an event as the strategy was to travel to at least 20 cities across the country. Their choice of cities was based on the social media traffic.
As you can seem it isn’t necessary to have massive amount of capital to expand your food truck business. If your food truck is currently doing great and you have done your marketing properly, you should be able to generate interest online. These two food trucks are expanding their business in two different directions but both creatively and with minimum additional investment.
If you want to try traveling to sending your food across the country, here are a few factors to consider:
- Do go aggressive with your online marketing and get your social media accounts active and updated
- Choose the locations you want to visit or expand to and start focusing on brand awareness
- Check the local zoning laws and permits on parking a food truck. Inquire about conditional temporary use which is a term for areas that normally do not allow food trucks but can be allowed under an exemption called conditional use.
- Plan your expansion to the last detail including where to source local ingredients so you don’t compromise on quality and flavors.
Finally, don’t rush the process but don’t take your sweet time planning your expansion. With the food truck business going strong and new food trucks being launched almost every month, there’s a lot of competition out there and it looks like it’s only going to get tougher.