Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

TABLE OF CONTENTS
----------------------------------------- 3

INTRODUCTION

PLANNING FOR A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS ON WHEELS ----------------------------------------- 4 CHAPTER1-CHOOSING A CONCEPT ----------------------------------------- 4 CHAPTER2-INFRASTRUCTURE NECESSITIES ----------------------------------------- 6 CHAPTER3-MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS ----------------------------------------- 7 CHAPTER4-LOCATIONS AND SCHEDULE ----------------------------------------- 9 MAKING IT HAPPEN CHAPTER1-FINALIZING AND REFINING THE MENU CHAPTER2-KITCHEN LAY OUT CHAPTER3-MANAGING THE TEAM CHAPTER4-BONDING WITH CUSTOMERS ----------------------------------------- 11 ----------------------------------------- 11 -----------------------------------------13 -----------------------------------------15 -----------------------------------------17

www.cart-king.com

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

INTRODUCTION

obile food business has gained a lot of popularity in the last few years. The food available at the mobile food carts is delicious, its inexpensive, and is convenient for people. Compared to the conventional restaurants, it is affordable to own and run a mobile food cart. The overheads are much lower compared to setting up and running a standalone restaurant. Another striking feature of mobile food business is that it is not dependant on any particular location and area. Mobile food cart can go anywhere. It can hit all kinds of different areas-outside offices, factories, schools, night clubs, near bus stands and taxi stands, and at fairs and exhibitions. The owners enjoy a lot of flexibility in terms of location. Attracting customers and selling them freshly prepared food items becomes lot easier when you own a mobile food cart. Mobile food cart may not seem to be a large scale business, but if you work hard and serve

good food, you can make excellent profits. Studies have revealed that the demographic of customers for mobile food businesses typically comprises working professionals and young, urban crowd. So, you can use social media to connect with them easily and build bonds with them. If you are interested in starting your mobile food cart business, this book would be quite useful for you. Learn the A-Z of starting your food business on the wheels.

www.cart-king.com

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

PLANNING FOR A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS ON WHEELS

CHAPTER 1- CHOOSING A CONCEPT

f you want to venture in to mobile food business, you would need to choose a concept. Your choice of concept would play an important role in determining your success in this particular niche. Contrary to what most

people think, the secret to a successful mobile food business lies in a simple and straightforward concept. The simpler and more straightforward the concept is the easier it becomes for the customers to appreciate the mobile food business. And, it goes without saying

that the mobile food business is able to make significant sales and profits out of this business model. You must be curious to know what a straightforward concept for a mobile business would be.

www.cart-king.com

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

Well, aim to specialize in one thing at a time. It would enable you to sell large amount of food in less time. If you are planning to sell doughnuts, sell only doughnuts. Do not sell pancakes, waffles, burgers, and cupcakes. Just sell different types of doughnuts. Do not complicate this simple model. For a restaurant on wheels, time is everything. It is of utmost importance to sell your stuff in as little time as possible. In mobile food cart business, if you stay there on the streets for longer you may end up incurring a lot of expense. Labour, cooking gas, generator-all these

things would eat up your business profits. You need to find a high traffic location, cook quickly, and sell it fast. Usually, the food that is sold on the mobile food carts and trucks is not priced at very high rates. Waffles, dinges, cupcakes, pancakes, hot dogs, burgers, French Toast, eggs, and other items that are sold at mobile food carts are priced at anywhere between 5 and 15 dollars per order. If you wish to make substantial profits, you need to sell a few hundreds of waffles or hot dogs every day. So, when you are choosing your mobile food business

concept, remember the points mentioned above. If you choose to complicate things, you may only be h a m p e r i n g yo u r ow n business profits and sales.

www.cart-king.com

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

CHAPTER 2- INFRASTRUCTURE NECESSITIES

he infrastructure requirements for a mobile food business are quite different from a conventional brick and mortar restaurant. You wont need land, construction materials, utility connections, and furniture to start a mobile food business. It may sound quite obvious but to start your mobile food business, the first and indeed the most important infrastructure requirement is the right cart or truck. As food cart business has been in existence for fairly long now, you would come across several different types and styles of food carts and trucks. Most food carts feature areas where you can put ready-to-serve food. There are others that have cooking areas and room for 2-3 people to stand inside them. Food trucks are larger than food carts. You can put more food and ingredients inside them as they have large

space and operational capacity. If you need to c a r r y e q u i p m e n t fo r cooking, ser ving, and preparing foods, you should buy a food truck. A relatively new concept in the mobile food industry is bustaurants. It is a doubledecker bus in which the lower level is used as a kitchen and the upper level is used for seating for clients. There are food car t manufacturers and suppliers who are willing to customize the food cart as per the specific needs and requirements of their clients. Whether you want to have a Retail info cart, Retail display cart, mobile coffee cart, push cart, food trailer concession, food concession and retail cart, or any other type of mobile food cart, you can get it to have your food business on the GO. Once you have bought the food cart, you would need

equipment for your kitchen. The equipment that you would need to buy would further depend on the menu that you choose to have in your mobile food cart business. You would need pots, pans, bowls, and other kitchen goods to cook and prepare the food. Cooking equipment onboard a cart uses generator. You would need to invest in a good generator. Go for a diesel powered generator as it is economical compared to the one that runs on gasoline. Cooking is done using Propane. You may be requiring approximately 900 gallons of propane annually. Food carts mostly utilize natural day light, but in case you choose to operate at night, you would need lighting as well. Use biodiesel to run your generator for electricity needs.

www.cart-king.com

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

CHAPTER 3- MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS

hen it comes to attracting customers to your food cart, social media is almost indispensable. Social media marketing is one of the best ways of staying in touch with

your customers. Since customers come for a very short duration to a mobile food cart, informing and educating them in advance can bring a huge difference to your mobile

food business prospects. Through social media, you can update your target customers about the location of your food cart business and your food menu. You can share photos of your

www.cart-king.com

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

food cart and foods and can build a community of people who are interested in your mobile food business offerings. Use Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other popular social networking sites for the promotion of your mobile food business. The best thing about social media advertising is that it would let you connect with your target customers quite easily. You need not develop elaborate and boring marketing content to educate them about your mobile food business. With social media, you can enter in to interesting, consistent, and regular dialogues with your target group. When it comes to marketing your food cart business, you need to be highly creative and social media would enable you to do that brilliantly well. Create an interesting profile page for your mobile food cart business, add photos of your food

cart, post something interesting almost every day even if its completely unrelated to selling, and learn about the interests, likings, dislikes and preferences of people through social media sites. You may also unleash the p ow e r o f v i d e o s i n marketing your food cart business. Get yourself a professional video and post it on YouTube and other places on the web to advertise your business successfully. Last, but not the least, build a mobile website for your food cart business. With more and more people using smartphones and mobile phones to access the web and to find local restaurants, shopping malls, you can make the most of this growing trend by building a mobile website for your business. Mobile website would result in increased traffic to your website and would ultimately result in more

customers and profits for your business. Marketing methods keep on evolving. Make sure you stay up to date to get the maximum customers for your mobile food cart.

www.cart-king.com

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

CHAPTER 4- LOCATIONS AND SCHEDULES

hen running a mobile food business, location will be one of the major factors in influencing the kind of profits that you make. If you want people to flock to your mobile hot dog cart or fast fo o d c a r t , yo u m u s t

carefully analyze and decide on the best mobile cart locations. Locations for your mobile food cart can be divided in two categories-Permanent and Temporary. You must choose permanent locations

where you can set up your food cart for a long term regular operation. It is advisable to obser ve different locations and analyse the activity and flow of crows in each of such location.

www.cart-king.com

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

Ideally, the best locations to put your food cart would be areas that see regular footfalls. Trade zones and areas with a cluster of offices are good spots for mobile food business. Working professionals are typically hard pressed for time and prefer to eat something that is easily accessible. It is very unlikely that they would travel far off to get something to eat during their office hours or when they are rushing back home in the evening. Standing outside metro rail stations or close to bus stands and taxi stands would also work well. At these spots you would find people who are busy and hurrying past. They may not have time to visit a restaurant and eat something. Grabbing a hot dog or a sandwich on their way past is what most people do. You need to park your food cart at the right location when people are likely to

be hungry. During the day, you must be there at the lunch time to enjoy good sale of your hot dogs or burgers. For a good trade in the evening time, wait outside pubs, bars and restaurants, near taxi stands and offices where hungry people emerge in large numbers and make their way home. It is important to find out some great temporary locations as well. Parking your food cart outside a factory or a college during the lunc h time where workers and students meet for a short duration is a good option. During summers, ice cream trucks and cola vans do a good business outside parks, gardens and on beaches. Look out for fairs, exhibitions, trade shows, and sport events. By working around two to three events locations in a month you could make up more money than what you could earn at your permanent

location working every day. If possible, secure a location before you buy a food cart for yourself. Select the locations and schedules judiciously to make the most of your mobile food cart business. Make sure you obtain necessary licenses wherever required.

www.cart-king.com

10

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

MAKING IT HAPPEN

CHAPTER 1- FINALIZING AND REFINING THE MENU

Menu Special
rom offering quick snacks for busy employees and students to serving families at carnivals and fairs, food carts cater to a wide array of clientele. As a food cart business owner, you have a plethora of options to choose from to

feed your target crowd. As the rule of the game is to prepare a few things really well, you must focus on one or at the most two cuisines at a time. Here are some food ideas that you may add in your mobile food cart menu. Hamburgers and hot dogs may sound ordinary, but they are some of the top sellers in mobile food industry. To add your own twist to these classic takes, you may use some special toppings on hot dogs, such

www.cart-king.com

11

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

as onions, peppers, chilli sauce, nacho sauce or cheese. Make hamburgers with unique ingredients like roasted peppers, gourmet cheese, avocado, and other such unique items to attract connoisseurs and hamburger fans to your food cart. You may offer sausages, bratwursts, and melts in addition to hot dogs. Pretzels and nachos can also be included in your hot dog food cart menu. Think about baguettebased sandwiches. These make tasty and filling meals, perfect for people on the go. You can make use of innumerable fillings to prepare these sandwiches. Mix meat balls, cheese, dried herbs, and sauces to make your sandwiches yummy and irresistible. How about wraps, fajitas and Burritos? Prepare wraps out of flatbreads and fill them with beef,

chicken, eggs, or cheese. Serve with sweet or spicy sauces. Tacos have been there for long on the mobile food cart menus. You can stand out from your competitors by trying something new. How about filling your tacos with grilled or pan fried vegetables, seasoned tofu? This vegetarian variation is worth trying out. Or serving tacos with local seafood? If you wish to include healthy options in your menu, you can include fresh fruit cups, soups, salads, grilled cheese. Some other options for your food menu are French fries, potato skins, deep dish pizza and chilli, steak hoagies, egg biscuits, sausages, omelettes, doughnuts and scones. Ice cream candies, cones and sweets can also be added to the menu to provide extra options to your customers.

Useful tip: Add regional and local cuisines on your mobile food cart menu. Try out a regional spin on cultural cuisines to attract more customers to your food cart.

www.cart-king.com

12

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

CHAPTER 2- KITCHEN LAYOUT IDEAS

well designed kitchen i s i n t e g ra l t o a successful mobile food cart business. If the kitchen layout is not correct, things can be frustrating and

discouraging. Careful planning will save you time and would help your staff carry the work in an efficient and safe manner. Overtime, it would help

increase the profitability of your mobile food cart business. When planning your food

www.cart-king.com

13

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

cart kitchen layout, you will have to keep in mind the minimal food cart space, and the equipment that you need to place and your budget. When planning your kitchen layout and design, you must keep in mind your food menu. The list of food items that you wish to include in your food cart menu would help you in choosing the equipment. You must choose the equipment depending on the foods that you wish to p r e p a r e. P l a n n i n g i n advance would prevent any waste of money in buying unnecessary equipment and making changes once the kitchen has been made. List out the equipment that you would need for food

preparation and storage. You must alconsider the size of broilers and steamers and other equipment when planning your food cart kitchen layout. Your kitchen must be planned so as to accommodate the amount, type, and size of equipment that you need for your food cart business. Next, you must decide upon the windows, doorways, electrical outlets, and exhaust and air conditioning vents that you need to have in your mobile food cart kitchen. When working on your kitchen layout and design, aim at enhancing the labor performance. Your chefs and workers must be able to work efficiently. It would be good to have plenty of free

space for moving inside the kitchen. The better your food cart kitchen layout and design are, the higher would be the efficiency and p ro d u c t i v i t y o f yo u r workers.

www.cart-king.com

14

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

CHAPTER 3- MANAGING THE TEAM

anaging staff is a difficult but a crucial aspect of r unning a successful mobile food cart business. To ensure that your mobile food cart business runs smoothly and yields the desired profits, you need to manage your staff

effectively. Make sure you hire the right people. Matc h their qualifications, skill and experience with the kind of job that they are expected to do. To be able to work at a mobile food cart, a

worker must know how to work quickly and confidently. He must have the patience and the skills to handle impatient, hungry c rowd . F r i e n d l y a n d energetic people make good workers at mobile food carts.

www.cart-king.com

15

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

Create a schedule for each work. Predict customer sales and counts when preparing the schedule for a given week. If you want things to flow out in a smooth and efficient manner, you must schedule carefully. When yo u a r e m a k i n g t h e schedule, keep in mind the availability of each labor. Ask them beforehand about their leave plans so that you do not have to look out for emergency labour at the last minute. Further, factor in their individual capabilities and talents. Once your schedule is ready, share it with your staff. They must know about their shifts and should make themselves available when they are required. In case your staff cannot make to their shifts tell them to inform

you beforehand. You must be able to make arrangements in time. Understaffing can result in poor quality standards and can affect your mobile food cart business sales and profits. Share your business goals and principles clearly with your staff. If you value certain principles like honesty, fair mindedness, team spirit, service quality, product quality, friendliness, and appropriate customer dealing you must let your staff know about it. Your staff will represent your mobile food cart business to your customers. They must therefore uphold the values and principles that you strongly believe in and what your customers to appreciate about your food

cart business. Finally, do not forget to reward your employees. It goes a long way in motivating the staff. Think of small ways to tell them that you value them and their services. It would make them happy. Remember that happy employees are productive employees.

www.cart-king.com

16

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

CHAPTER 4- BONDING WITH THE CUSTOMERS

uilding bonds with customers is essential if you want to enjoy repeat sales, and want your customers to spread good words about your mobile food cart business. The first and indeed the most crucial step for building bonds with your customers is to provide them with superior products and services. Make sure that you sell only tasty, hygienic, and authentic food at your mobile food cart. If people like your hot dogs or tacos,

they would surely come back to you. Gather information pertaining to customer needs and preferences, frequency of purchase, and their satisfaction level with the particular purchase. You must use the data to think how you can enhance customer satisfaction. If customers are happy and satisfied, it becomes easy to bond with them. Listen to your customers. Take their opinions on how

you can serve them better. Ask them if they desire any changes in the food menu or if they have any issues with the quality. Make them feel heard and build successful bonds with your customers. Make sure that your staff is friendly and welcoming. They should not lose their patience and temper easily when they find themselves surrounded by impatient and hungry crowd. Serving with a smile matters. Building bonds with customers wont be very

www.cart-king.com

17

Rolling Into the Mobile Food Industry

difficult. Utilize social media to connect effectively with your customers. Build your fan page on Facebook and share tips, and suggestions with your fans. Ask for their suggestions too. Build an interesting dialog to connect with your customers. Offer additional services. You may add beverages or desserts to your food cart. Or you may make arrangements for parking. It would help in building bonds with your customers. Building bonds with customers is difficult but is not impossible. Think of ways and you would be able to have customers for lifetime for your mobile food cart. About Cart King Cart-King International is a retail kiosk and push cart manufacturer. The retail push carts and kiosks that we supply are made with superior quality commercial grade

materials and the designs are made with special thought paid to practical applications and structural detail. Cart-King's retail coffee kiosks and mobile (push) carts can be customized to clients color and structural requirements. We build units from scratch based on your ideas. Our team utilizes cutting-edge software and this enables us to pre-build virtual food carts and retail kiosks for your inspection and cost assessment. We build the units to the 3D model specifications before starting the work so that you know exactly what your unit will look like. As a retail kiosk manufacturer, Cart-King strives to deliver quality mill-worked products only. Our Mill-workers are of 4th generation

European descent ensuring your kiosk or cart is made with the very highest standards.

For more details on our products for mobile food business visit www.cart-king.com Call at 1-877-986-7771

www.cart-king.com

18