Have an idea for a food business, but are short on funds to make it happen? One of the best ways to put your business in front of angel investors is with a pitch deck. And the best way to get your idea in front of investors is by submitting your pitch deck to the $5,000 – $50,000 Mobile Food Challenge. We’re accepting pitch deck submissions through February 23rd, 2021 so act now!

On this page, we break down everything you need to make a pitch deck that can be submitted to the Mobile Food Challenge. We even provide templates and samples you can download on this page for free. Here’s what you’ll need to get started: 

• How to enter the Mobile Food Challenge 
• What is a pitch deck?
• Sections of a pitch deck
• Pitch deck templates
• How to prepare for a pitch deck presentation

How to Enter the Mobile Food Challenge

Here’s how to enter the Mobile Food Challenge brought to you by Huntington Hill Ventures. The Mobile Food Challenge is an online business pitch competition offering a $5,000 minimum investment all the way up to $50,000 to the winner ($5k – $50k), plus on-going mentorship from a team of experienced advisors. If you have a food business idea of your own, I’d love for you to complete this pitch deck and submit the idea here.

Our top three applicants will move onto the final pitch round that will be held on March 31st, 2021. At this virtual event, the finalists present their ideas to a panelist of investors (kind of like the hit-television show Shark Tank). and at least one person will walk away with an investment offer.

How to Enter: 

1.) Complete the pitch deck for your business. Templates and instruction for completing the pitch deck are below. The attached audio lesson also gives you help.

2.) Email your completed pitch deck to support@foodtruckempire.com by February 23rd, 2021. Be sure to include your name, email address, and telephone number so we can reach out to you. Finalists will be selected by February 27th to move onto the finals and pitch their idea to investors.

Key Dates for The Mobile Food Challenge:

• February, 1st – 23rd: Applications will be accepted for The Mobile Food Challenge. For details on how to submit your application and business pitch deck, visit MobileFoodChallenge.com.

• February, 25th – 30th: Applicants with promising business ideas will be reached by email or phone to gather basic information about their submission. These conversations will help determine the selection of finalists.

• March, 1st: Between three and five finalists will be selected and announced. All finalists will be enrolled into an 8-week online mentorship program at no cost to help them pitch their idea. This program is run by Food Truck Empire and has been very well received.

• March, 31st: This event culminates with a virtual Shark-Tank inspired event called The 5-50 Mobile Food Challenge. During this virtual summit, finalists will present their pitch decks to a panel of angel investors and at least one participant will be offered a $5,000 minimum investment, business mentorship, and on-going support to help grow their business. Winning the Mobile Food Challenge is not the end, but the beginning of a longer-term relationship supporting you and your business.

What is a pitch deck?

A pitch deck is a short presentation document used to express the basic concept of a business, including how revenue will be generated, cost to get started, and marketing plan. Pitch decks are generally short (between 10 – 15 slides in length) and can be presented to a group of potential investors in under 10 minutes.

The entire point of a pitch deck is to get straight to the point of what your business does and how you intend to make money. This is not intended to be an in-depth like a business plan where you’ll explain the detailed the financials of the business. This is a short document that helps you explain what your business does in a few minutes. If you’re audience

Related Reading: How Super Batter Pancake and Waffle Mix Got into 15 Retailers in 6 Months

Sections of a pitch deck

The pitch deck included in this post is designed for a new or existing food business startups. Here’s what to include in a pitch deck.

Title: This slide lists the name company name, year the business is being founded, and the name of the founder (probably you!).

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My example title slide.

About Us: Briefly describe your business and mission. Tell us about the food you plan to serve. This only needs to be 2 – 3 paragraphs in length.

Team: List the members of your team. For most startup food businesses this is usually only one or two people. If you have multiple team members, make sure to clearly identify each persons role in the company.

Impact on Community: Does your company have a social benefit? The goal of your business could be to help raise money for a non-profit in your area. The program could also provide job training for at-risk youth. Your impact on the community could be as simple as providing healthy meals to customers in your community.

Menu: What type of food do you plan to sell at your food truck or restaurant? If you have a food product business like Keto-friendly crackers, describe the products and flavor options here instead.

Operations Schedule: How often do you plan to vend or work on the business? If you are a mobile food business, be working a lot of weekends as this is the busiest time for most of these businesses. You can break out the operations schedule by day and hours.

Vending Locations: Where exactly do you plan to vend and sell your food? Is there a specific farmers market you’ve got in mind? Do you plan to open a restaurant at a local strip-mall? Tell us where you plan to sell your food. If you’re opening a CPG business, you should list the specific stores where you would like to get a retail or sell online through an e-commerce store.

Competitive Analysis: Identify your competitors and list them here. You will use this competitive analysis to help identify what makes company unique. Be sure to include details like pricing or marketing approach.

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My competitive analysis example slide.

What’s Different: Describe how you business is unique in the local or national market. Does your product offer health benefits, distinct flavors, unique branding, or other advantages that will help your business standout from what’s currently available in the market.

Estimated Startup Costs: Determine how much money you’ll need to open the business. Common startup costs for a food business include equipment (cooking equipment, food trailer), permits, initial inventory, and insurance.

Funding the Business: Where do you plan to get the funds needed to start the business based on your estimated startup cost? Here you will list personal funds, friends / family donations, and the amount you’re hoping to get from investors. Don’t forget to include the specific amount of money you intend to raise from each section.

• Personal funds: This is funding for the business that you bring to the table. Investors like to see you bringing some money to the table to ensure you’ve got skin in the game. This money could come from a savings account or 401K.
• Friends / family: This is money raised for your business from people you already know that believe in your business. This could be from your mom, sister, brother, rich uncle, or a childhood friend.
• Other plans to fund: List the other ways are you planning to fund the business. Credit cards? Bank loan? Crowdfunding?
• Investor requested funds: If you plan to participate in our Mobile Food Challenge, please share how much investment you’re requesting here.

Target daily sales goal: This slide helps you get clear on the amount of sales you need to be happy and comfortable with the business. This target daily sales goal should at a minimum cover all your monthly expenses to operate the business.

Here’s the formula you’ll need to estimate in this section:

goal number of sales X average ticket value = gross sales goal

Longterm vision: List your longterm goals for the business. These can be short bulleted statements. Think in terms of the next 5 – 10 years. This section is a good place to articulate any plans to scale the business in the future.

Example goals: 

• Expand into a second mobile unit
• Expand from mobile into a restaurant location.
• Donate 10,000 meals to local food shelf in 10 years.

Pitch Deck Templates

Here are my pitch deck templates available on Google Docs. You can save these files to your computer and edit with your own business information.

• Blank Pitch Deck Template – Download this template with basic instruction on filling out the document.
• Completed Pitch Deck Sample – Here is a completed pitch deck that includes financial numbers, longterm vision, and other components of a pitch deck. This is intended to provide you an example of how to complete each slide.

If you don’t like the design of this pitch deck, not to worry. There are literally thousands of pitch decks available online by conducting a quick Google search or exploring Google Docs. Just keep in mind that many of these documents were intended for tech startups so you will need to adjust the slide topics to make sense for a food business.

How to prepare for a pitch deck presentation 

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Most pitches are now conducted live and online.

After you’ve got your pitch deck finalized there’s still one more step. Making the plea to investors for the capital needed to start the business. Historically, a pitch deck presentation would happen live in front of investors behind closed boardroom doors. But times have changed. These pitches usually occur virtually on Zoom meetings.

Serious about starting a mobile food business? Click here to get our free business kit. 

After you’ve taken the time to put together a pitch deck, you don’t want to drop the ball at the five yard line with a poor presentation. Common issues that pop-up in these live pitches include wrong screens being shared, poor audio, or a bad internet connection. Hiccups like these not only throw you off your game, but they can make you look unprepared. Not a good message to send to investors!

Here are best practices to ensure your pitch goes smoothly in an online setting. Many of these mistakes I’ve been guilty of so don’t feel bad if they’ve happened to you.

• Poor internet connection: As more participants that join a meeting, the internet connection can lag if you don’t have a strong signal. Before presenting make sure you’re in an area with a strong connection. Before presenting, I make sure to go to the room closest to my router. In some parts of my house, the signal is weak and can lead to issues. Make sure you choose a place with a strong internet connection whether it’s your own home or co-working space before presenting.
• Close down applications: The last thing you want is to get an instant message from a college roommate while presenting your business idea. Make sure to shut down all other applications before making your pitch. This can also help you computer run faster during the presentation.
• Choose a quiet location: Dogs barking in background. Kids running amok. It’s all part of an everyday Zoom presentation, but do everything you can to keep things on your end quiet. This might mean leaving your house for the presentation. I’ve done a lot of Zoom meetings from my garage.
• Practice presenting: Try to keep your presentation at 10 minutes max. Time yourself going through the deck. Let the panelists know before you start the presentation that this will only require 10 minutes of their time and then you will open things up for questions.
• Know your numbers: If you’ve ever seen an episode of Shark Tank, you understand how important knowing the financials of a business is to prospective investors. Come prepared with answers about unit cost, what you’ll use the funds toward, and sales projections.

By utilizing this template and developing a strong pitch, you can literally enter any room and be prepared to explain a business idea… whether it’s in person or online. We look forward to seeing your pitches!

If you’d like to join our free online community of 45,000+ food business founders, click here. Each week we send a new food business case with revenue numbers for you to learn from. When you sign up you’ll also be invited to watch the Mobile Food Challenge pitches live even if you don’t plan to submit a pitch yourself.

The post Download My Pitch Deck Template for Food Businesses (Free) appeared first on Food Truck Empire.

Thinking about launching a KickStarter or IndieGogo campaign to raise funds for your business or project? Our goal is to help you avoid the crowdfunding mistakes we’re seeing everywhere in 2021.

First a little background about today’s audio lesson brought to you by Gusto. Malcolm Bedell successfully launched one of the biggest food truck campaigns in KickStarter history back in 2015 raising $29,457. You can check out the KickStarter campaign here to watch the video, see campaign perks, and learn the entire story.

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401 backers pledged $29,457 for Malcolm Bedell’s campaign.

Malcolm and I have held classes together teaching the mechanics of launching a successful campaign from recording a video pitch, writing good ad copy, adding photos, and creating perks. But what we’ve learned is the mechanical steps aren’t the issue in the graveyard of failed crowdfunding campaigns.

In fact, most of the KickStarter videos and ad copy we’ve seen are pretty darn good. The basic pieces of a crowdfunding campaigns aren’t the main point of failure. Bottom line, the basic tips you’ll find on hundreds of articles published on the subject of recording a good crowdfunding video isn’t what will actually make or break the campaign.

Our goal with this post is to give you direction on where to focus most of your time and effort in addition to revealing where most of your time should be spent. Let’s dig into each of these crowdfunding campaign killers and explain how to avoid them: 

1. The things you do before the launch is what’s most important.
2. All or nothing.
3. No status updates.
4. Hard to fulfill / bottom line killing perks.

The things you do before the launch is what’s most important.

Last week I got an email from Dave. I knew Dave had been working toward opening a food truck business for a couple years and sent me a link to his campaign on IndieGoGo. I clicked the link to check it out and support the cause.

Here’s what I discovered. The campaign had actually started 10 days prior and was scheduled to end in about a week. To date there had been a couple hundred dollars raised for a goal of $15,000. It was clear to me that Dave’s campaign would not be fully funded from the second I hit the page. There was no excitement, activity, and the campaign was about to end.

This is the trailer Malcolm purchased with campaign funds.

Unfortunately, this is a problem I’ve seen with campaigns before. The entrepreneur invests weeks recording a video, creating bonuses, writing a story for the campaign page, but because don’t take any time to notify people in advance of the campaign open. Since there’s no promotion in advance of the campaign opening, the fundraiser doesn’t go anywhere. There’s crickets on launch day and the entrepreneur is left wondering what when wrong.

It doesn’t matter how great your video is if people don’t know about the launch. If your entire plan to promote your crowdfunding campaign is posting two updates on Facebook and telling your best friend about it, I’m sorry to say your fundraising effort is destined to fail.

Fortunately, you’re reading this so you can avoid this crippling mistake. Instead of notifying people about your campaign after it’s already open, start the contact people the campaign a full 30 days in advance of your campaign open date. This is exactly what Malcolm did to raise nearly $30,000 for a food trailer. Here’s the basic 30 day pre-launch plan that you can follow too.

30-Day Pre-Launch Outreach Sample Plan: 

• Direct message all of your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or other social media friends to let them know you have a campaign launching in 30 days.
• Email all your friends, co-workers, and family members about the crowdfunding campaign 30 days in advance.
• Compile a list of websites, blogs, and local newspapers / writers and contact them about your campaign. Be open to conducting interviews for these people of the press.

You should spend the time writing a personalize message to each person you contact. Explain your campaigns goals, when you plan to launch and the importance of “Day 1” donations in the message. Yes… This will take a very long time.

Reader Note: The most successful campaigns overall have a “first 24 hour” rush of donations. This helps build social proof and momentum for the campaign. A big first day is critical because it gets people excited. You can parlay this excitement into more press and more donations. This is an important step to get people emotionally invested in the campaign. If you don’t have a big first couple days, you’re unlikely to secure funding.

All or Nothing.

If you don’t hit your campaign goals, the business doesn’t open. Without your donation, the dream ends. It sounds harsh and it is. But this is a point you need to hammer home in your campaign marketing.

When Malcolm clicked published on his crowdfunding campaign there were no backup plans. Malcolm didn’t have enough money or good enough credit for bank loan. Either he raised the money or got another desk job. Those were the two outcomes. How much harder to you would work toward something if the stakes were this high?

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Learn how two mom’s raised $47,000 on KickStarter for a cracker company. 

Another campaign I supported made this critical mistake. On social media, the owner promoted their crowdfunding campaign. This is good. But they also stated that they were going to get the money to start the business even if the campaign failed with a loan, dipping into retirement savings or whatever. These sorts backup plans make it less likely to conjure the emotional response required to get a donation.

People get behind all or nothing causes. Make sure everyone understands how critical their investment is in your business. No donation. No business. Period.

No On-Going Updates

The most successful crowdfunding campaigns are on-going events. The best campaigns have landmarks or mini goals that are hit. You want to notify your subscribers, fans, followers, friends and family about each goal you cross off the list. Here are a few updates you’ll want to make sure to share with your campaign followers:

Attention Founders: Get a New Food Business Case Study with Revenue Numbers Delivered To Your Inbox Each Week

• Pre-launch message about a month before campaign kicks off.
• Campaign is starting soon! Notify everyone about your campaign and send a link to your KickStarter page a 4 – 7 days in advance of the opening.
• Night before. Notifying everyone again about the campaign and stress the importance of day one donations.
• Campaign is live! Announce to everyone when campaign is live so they can donate. Call people and do anything you can to get people to take out their credit cards and donate right away. Ask them to share this campaign link with everyone.
• Plan to post campaign update videos 12, 24, and 48 hours after your campaign launches, thanking supporters for their backing and letting them know that their donations are bringing your dream to life. Record these with your iPhone. No editing required.
• Announcement of first income marker hit. Ideally at this point you’ll hit some donation threshold, maybe that’s $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000. When you hit a big round number that looks impressive, make sure to notify everyone. This helps generate excitement that this campaign could actually work out.
• Other update options. There are other landmarks you might hit like getting interviewed by a blogger, getting press in your local paper. Share some other examples of momentum for the campaign. Express how thankful you are to everyone who already donated. Announce an exciting perk that supporters can get.
• The Final Hours of the Campaign. In the last 24 hours of a campaign, you really need to get aggressive by letting people know this is the last chance to contribute and support this incredible cause.
• Post campaign wrap up. Let people know how you did. Let folks know when the bonuses are coming.

As you can see there’s plenty to update people on about any campaign. It’s critical to provide on-going updates because some you know people might have forgotten about your campaign. They may not have opened the first email from you. They might have gotten an urgent call at the exact moment they planned to contribute.

Following this process ensures your message is heard through all the noise. Remember, while this campaign is a big deal to you, it’s just another status update or email to someone else. Do everything you can to stay top of mind.

Hard to Fulfill / Bottom Line Killing Perks 

One of the most popular tips for launching a successful crowdfunding campaign is to give away really amazing rewards to run a successful campaign. This advice is fine and well, but be careful promising too much when it comes to campaign rewards.

Related Reading: How Fat Leaf Water Raised $30k+ for a Cactus Water Sports Beverage

After all you’re getting into the food business, not the t-shirt fulfillment business. The last thing you want to do after hitting your crowdfunding goal is to spend the next month of your life fulfilling rewards instead of getting a funded business off the ground. This happens more than you might think.

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Some of the low-level rewards given to backers.

Another mistake we advise against is investing in perks that eat away at your campaign profits. One of the campaign mistakes Malcolm regrets is offering tin lunch boxes to supporters of a certain level. The tin lunch box with an engraved logo was cool, but a pain to fulfill and expensive. Not only did Malcolm need to wait for a few lunch boxes to be shipped to his home that cost around $30 with shipping. Malcolm then needed to individually mail every lunch box the supporters address too.

Instead of offering high-cost packages for backers, try keep fulfillment of rewards simple and affordable. Twitter shoutouts, a digital book, an exclusive cooking class held on Zoom, a tour of your restaurant kitchen after it opens, a 30-minute consulting phone call, naming a sandwich after someone on the menu, or even sending bumper stickers. None of these perks require much fulfillment effort.

Don’t think reward fulfillment is an issue? There’s an entire industry of reward fulfillment services you can work with after your campaign ends to manage getting rewards shipped. Working with one of these companies will eat into the profitability of a campaign, but they also allow you to get on with running your business.

So there you have it. The most common mistakes we see with campaigns that didn’t gain traction over the past year. If you want to get more inspiration on other ways that entrepreneurs have launched their own crowdfunding campaign, check out our case studies below.

• How Bissy Energy Founded a Plant-Based Kolanut Energy Powder and Coffee Alternative (Raised $33,300 on KickStarter)
• How Two Moms Launched Keto Cracker Company Defy Foods (Raised More than $47,000 with Crowdfunding)
• How NoSpike Pre-sold $10,000 of Diabetic Friendly Shakes on KickStarter

The post Four Epic Crowdfunding Mistakes That Kill Campaigns (2021 Edition) appeared first on Food Truck Empire.

Interested in starting a food truck? You’re about to discover what it’s really like to build a mobile food business from scratch. 

If you’re starting out on your own food truck journey and wondering if this is the right path for you then this is the episode for you. In today’s audio lesson we share the good and the bad of operating a food truck business, the estimated cost to get started, and some of the top performing menu ideas in mobile food.

If you’ve got a food truck dream, you’ve probably put considerable thought into what it will be like to operate. You can imagine greeting guests, serving meals at events, making people smile, cooking the food you love. Being personally fulfilled while making money and being your own boss is the vision. And we have good news. This really is what owning and operating a food truck can be like.

Malcolm Bedell of Ancho Honey.

But it’s not all sunshine and roses in the food truck industry either. Like any other business there are bills that need to be paid, traveling to events can prove tiring, mechanical breakdowns and an endless amount of prep work and cleanup that must be completed. It’s important you understand these real business challenges before releasing the safety harness and diving into this venture full-time. Click play below to find out if this business is right for you and download our presentation to follow along.



Like so many things in life, you shouldn’t start a food truck business if you don’t have the right personality. For example, if you prefer working alone this industry may not be a good fit. You’ll be regularly talking to customers, suppliers, and event promoters in this business. Don’t like working weekends? Friday nights and weekends are the most profitable days for many of these businesses.

What You’ll Learn

• What it’s really like to operate a food truck. The good and bad.
• All the costs involved in starting a food truck business.
• Characteristics of successful food truck businesses. Plus, high-profit menu ideas.
• How food trucks actually make their money.
• The next steps you need to take if you would like to get involved in this $1 billion per year industry.

Download Now: Sign up for the Food Truck Business Kit that Includes Cost Analysis Spreadsheet and Business Plan Template

The Food Truck Case Study

You’ve stumbled upon a real-time case study on starting a food truck featuring entrepreneur Malcolm Bedell of Ancho Honey food truck / restaurant based out of Tenants Harbor, Maine. In this series we follow along with Bedell as he goes through the process of writing a business plan, seeking funding, developing a menu, getting a food truck manufactured and finally hitting the streets of Tenant’s Harbor to sell his sandwiches.

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Hey ma! Look what I made on my truck!

Bookmark and share this page with others as it will serve as a table of contents for future updates on the progress of Bedell’s business.

The crazy thing about this case study is that it’s a work in progress. Bedell’s experience could result in fame, fortune, and he could become an incredible inspiration for other budding culinary entrepreneurs. On the flip side, the business could fail and serve as a warning to other dreamers.

Learn More

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Order up!

How to Start a Food Truck Business in 6(ish) Steps – Get an overview of the basic steps to start this business. This is a great place to begin.

The Complete Breakdown of Food Truck Operation Costs – Find out how much it will realistically cost to start a food truck business.

Food Truck License and Permits – Use this checklist to determine everything you’ll need to legally open a food truck business.

How to Write a Food Truck Business Plan – Get to know a little bit about the background of Salvagno and learn the process he’s used to write a business plan. A copy and template of his business plan are included within the post.

Creating a Menu and Sourcing Product – Learn how to create a unique menu and source product for a food truck business.

How to Finance a Food Truck – Learn how to scrape together the cash required to purchase a food truck. Hint: Most food truck owners use a variety of funding sources.

Navigating City Regulations and Health Code Requirements – Find out how to find out about the local laws of a city and why an LLC was the right business entity to form. There are also tips for identifying the laws in your city as well.

How to Choose a Food Truck Builder – Our hero buys a custom truck for $35,000. See what the process of working with a manufacturer was like along with some of the difficulties he experienced while getting the truck.

Stuff that Goes Wrong When You Start a Mobile Food Business – Much has happened since the last time I spoke with Anthony Salvagno. The truck arrived from his builder, which became a much more interesting story than it should have been. We also go in-depth into all the different hurdles encountered while starting a business so far.

The First Summer on a Food Truck – See what the first season operating a food truck is really like.

Order our full guide on what it’s really like operating a food truck in your first year.

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The post The Ultimate Food Truck Case Study for 2021 appeared first on Food Truck Empire.

I got a question from one of our food business academy premium members last week that I felt would be valuable to share with all the readers / listeners of this podcast. She asked about the best ways to test market her new food products and get feedback.  The answer is in the notes below and audio lesson — thanks for sending in the question, Haley!

What is Test Marketing? 

Test marketing is a way to see if there’s demand for your product. Without testing, it’s possible you could be creating a food product that no one wants. If nobody wants your product, you unfortunately don’t have a business.

Test marketing is often over-looked as an “I don’t have to do that” step of starting a food business. But, it’s arguably the most important step – even more so than packaging design, costing, and distribution strategy.

Without test marketing, your product might fail. And failure isn’t an option when you’ve got so much money, time, and resources tied up into your little food company that could (or couldn’t).

Hydrant mailed free samples to bloggers and social media influencers to ask for product feedback.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this podcast:

• Why test marketing is crucial to the success of your food business
• Where to do your test marketing (and why you have to be careful with friends and family)
• The proven 5-step plan to test marketing (this is exactly what I do to test market new flavors for Green Mountain Mustard
• Examples of small food businesses that failed test market their products. Like a grasshopper candy maker at a local farmers market.
• Learn the secret benefits of test marketing and how the product gets customers involved in the recipe development process. We’ve tried inventive new mustard flavors like cinnamon mustard and sweet potato mustard and people always flock to our booth to try those new flavors. Most of these flavors never see a full production run.
• Find out how our show sponsor Gusto can help manage payroll and HR for specialty food businesses.

How to Test Market a Food Product

Have you been playing around in your home kitchen, trying to come up with the next best chocolate chip cookie? Or maybe, you’ve got the “secret sauce”.

Creating a food product is one thing. But, making a product consumers buy over and over again is tough.

That’s why test marketing your new food idea is the way to go.

Test marketing gives you an idea of who would buy your product, for how much money, and if they would change anything about it.

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I used test marketing to determine each of these mustard flavors.

Of course, when you’re testing something out, a million things could go wrong. You could get a false sense of hope, you could find out that, while delicious, people won’t buy your product. Or, the worst – no one’s a fan. Hard to believe with food products, I know, but it’s happened to me before.

So how do you get the biggest bang for your buck from your test marketing efforts?

It’s not easy. You’ll likely be test marketing for several months before you pull the trigger. But don’t worry! Once you get an idea for what your customers like, you’ll get more clarity on the specific products that are going to be a success.

For now, let’s get your first test marketing under way. Here’s a few specific ways to get started.

6 tips to help you test market your food product:

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One of our early labels.

1. Don’t let family and friends give you feedback

Family members are supposed to be honest, right? Not exactly. When I was test marketing my energy bars and mustard, family members often sugar-coated their feedback. They weren’t upfront with me. Same with friends – they want to be supportive which means they tell you what you want to hear. This ultimately means you don’t get the best feedback.

To find people who aren’t friends and family, ask co-workers at work, post an ad on Craigslist looking for focus group participants, or give your family a couple test products and tell them to bring it to work. Since their co-workers don’t know you, they’ll be honest.

Related Reading: 25-Step Plan to Make Your Food Company a Reality

2. Perfect one product

Test marketing a line of 10 products is overwhelming. It creates decision paralysis for your test group. Plus, it can alter the taste of products if you have them taste multiple varieties. By focusing on one flavor, you’re able to perfect that recipe. Then, when you’re successful with one, use your test group to expand your product line.

After you’ve got one food product customers crave don’t stop the testing there. Continue going through the process for each new flavor you add.

One example of a company that followed this exact rollout process is called Bitchin’ Sauce out of Carlsbad, California. The original Bitchin’ Sauce is a unique lemon and garlic dip made from almonds with a similar texture to hummus. This single flavor launched the Bitchin’ Sauce brand that’s now sold in major retailers like Costco. Only after building momentum and proving their concept did the company start to release other flavors like pesto and chipotle. They did not release multiple flavors at once to kick off the business. Launching with eight or more flavors would have infinitely complicated the process for this family run operation. Keep things simple in the beginning!

3. Retailers are not your customers

The first place many companies just starting out go for research is their local grocery store. And that’s not a good idea. Sure, it’s awesome to get the buyer’s attention, but retailers aren’t your customer. The retailer’s customers are the ones  buying your product. By staying focused on consumers, you’ll get the feedback you need to found a fantastic food company.

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More photos of our mustard line.

4. Prepare for criticism

Let’s face it – not everyone is going to LOVE your food product. In fact, just a few weeks ago, I was told one of my test mustard flavors “sucked”. I kid you not. While 8 out of 10 customers are likely to think your product is worth buying, it’s the other 20% you should pay attention to. Why don’t they like it? What can you do better? Taking this criticism and feedback is important. It helps you make a product 100% of people enjoy.

5. Craft a 30-second pitch

“Try this and tell me what you think” is probably one the worst ways to get a customer to try your product. It’s bland, boring, and not engaging. Work on a short pitch about your product. What makes it different? Do you have unique ingredients? This pitch is not only useful for consumers, but you’ll need it when it comes to selling your product to retailers.

Test marketing is necessary to start a food business and produce a product consumers are going to fall in love with. Just making salsa, brownies, or spice blends because you like to cook isn’t a great reason to start your food business. Why?

It reminds me of a quote I heard from one of my marketing professors in college:

“Make what people will buy – not what you want to sell”

That quote is spot on. If customers like chunks in their salsa, make it chunky. If customers only want to buy your triple chocolate fudge sauce then discontinue the other flavors. Focus on what your customers are telling you, respond in a timely manner, and watch your food business take off.

6. Get survey responses from people that tasted your sample. 

Create a short 2 – 4 question survey to help document feedback. Here a few specific questions I would include in these short forms. Make sure these surveys can be completed in less than 3 minutes.

• Would you purchase this product?
• How much would you pay for the product?
• Can you describe the flavor to me in your own words?
• Do you have any improvements or suggestions you would like implemented?

By asking these specific questions you’ll get a better understanding of whether or not people will actually pay for your food product and get specific ideas on ways to improve the recipe if needed.

Take this feedback home and look for patterns. If one tester thinks the product is to thin or too thick, don’t worry about it. If you see a trend those are the pieces of feedback you want to take action on.

Processing feedback from test marketing events

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Getting flavor feedback at a local farmer’s market.

One final bonus tip. Do your best to get into a zen state of mind when you’re accepting feedback (aka criticism) about your flavors and food. Believe it or not, many founders will go through the process of test marketing their food product only to throw out the results for any number of reasons.

Maybe they tested providing free samples at the wrong location without a market fit. Maybe the batch wasn’t quite right on that day. Maybe the samplers don’t know good food when they taste it!

Related Reading: Menu & Recipe Cost Template – Download My Spreadsheet

While the reasons listed above can in fact be true in certain situations. Don’t continue to move forward with the same approach to a food business if you tested your idea across multiple events and received the same type of feedback. Don’t fall in love with an idea that’s destined to fail and lose you money.

If a food item doesn’t resonate with customers, don’t take it to heart either. Just because no one liked your first food idea it’s in no way a reflection on your skills or ability to launch a successful food brand. Head back to the test kitchen and start brain storming another food idea you can bring into the world.

Do you have any test marketing tips for people who want to launch their food business? Let me know in the comments. If you want to more case studies like this one from proven food founders, don’t forget to join our community of 40,000+ members. Each week we’ll send you a new case study straight to your inbox.

The post 6 Smart Tips to Test Market Your Food Product appeared first on Food Truck Empire.

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Your 25 Step Plan to Starting a Food Business.

A lot of wanna-be food entrepreneurs sit at their kitchen table with their head in their hands wondering what to do next. Where do they start? What about finding kitchen space? Recipe approval? A logo? Man, there’s a lot.

If you’re stuck with starting your food business, I’ve created a 25-step fool-proof guide that walks you through everything you need to do before your first sale. The list is a mix of marketing, production, operations, and general food business to-do’s. And it’s in no particular order. I hope you find value in it — if you do, let me know.

Let’s hop right into it:

1. Select your company name

This one’s quick – grab some friend’s and family and start putting names down on a piece of paper. But, don’t settle. Think about your company name.

You don’t want it to be close to anyone else’s, hard to say, or limiting (yes, I realize I did 2 out of 3, but I didn’t know better back then!). Plus, look on GoDaddy to see if your domain name is available and snatch it up (we’ll talk about website later).

Here are tools to help you with naming:

• Wordoid (this is super-fun)
• NameRobot
• Food truck name ideas
• Bagel shop name ideas
• Chili cook off team name ideas

2. Decide what you’re going to make

Do you just want to make bbq sauce? Are you known for cookies, but would like to make brownies and ice cream sandwiches? What product lines do you want to launch? I’d stick with one to begin with (as I wrote about here), but make sure your company name reflects the focus or depth of your product lines. Plus, think about how many products you’d like in your product line.

Do you want to make 12 flavors of jam, or focus on your top 3? For wider distribution, less is always more, You’re likely not going to get all 12 skus on the shelf. And ps: Take a look at the jam study before you make 4,000 flavors.

Attention Founders: Download our food business startup kit with business canvas, startup spreadsheets, and exclusive interviews. 

3. Get a logo designed (and other materials)

This is the exciting part! What do you want your logo to look like? Have you started sketching? Whenever I’m designing something, I ask myself what emotion do I want from my customers? Is this is a sales piece or is it fun and playful? What tone do you want to communicate? Find a friend to do some free design work in exchange for product or browse one of these sites for a freelance graphic designer:

• Envato Studio
• 99Designs
• CrowdSpring
• Fiverr.com – I use this website all the time for affordable design help.

When you’ve got your logo design, stick with the same designer for packaging, business cards, sell sheets, and more. They’ll already have a good handle of what you’re looking for after working with you to develop your company’s logo.

4. Get your website up – and social media profiles

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Yes… that’s really me on the production floor bottling mustard.

Even before you’ve launched your product, get your website up. It’ll give Google a chance to see you put something up on the web – and you’ll be able to build an email list of fans who can’t wait for you to launch! And don’t forget to secure those social media profiles (even if you’ve got nothing to put up yet!).

Here are a couple of resources I have used in the past to build quick websites (and they all have ecommerce components)

• Shopify (we use this for Green Mountain Mustard and I LOVE it)
• SquareSpace (incredibly easy to use interface)
• WordPress (you’ll want your own hosting here, but this is wildly popular. The website you’re reading right now is built on WordPress.)

5. Look up health laws, permits, insurance and more

Ok – here’s the first biggie. Seps 1-4 were pretty easy, but important for your company’s branding. Now, it’s time to get down to work and see if you need to apply for any permits before you produce your product. What permits and licenses am I talking about?

• Food Producer’s License (usually you get these through the state health department office.
• Caterer’s License (if you’re preparing and serving food for immediate consumption)
• Scheduled Process (if you produce a product in a jar it should be approved by a process authority. Here’s more on that)
• Business License (want to be a corporation, LLC, partnership? File the paperwork to become a real business with your Secretary of State’s office)
• Product Liability Insurance (basic insurance is $1 million general liability and $2 million general aggregate
• Legal protection – you may want to protect your company name and it’s visual identity – or even a unique tagline.

6. Find packaging for your food product

How are you going to package your product? Do you want to put it in glass jars? Printed pouches? Your scheduled process may mandate how you package your product, so you could be limited. Regardless, here’s a couple resources (and pretty packaging) you can browse to find what you’d like:

• Andler Packaging Group
• Richards Packaging
• Fillmore Container
• Stand-up Pouches

And if you need package design inspiration check out The Dieline or even Pinterest.

There are even more packaging resources on this page.

7. Determine your product’s pricing

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Drumming up sales at the local farmer’s market.

This is the most important step on the entire list — the cost of your product. It determines if you’ll have a viable business. It determines your price on the shelf. And it could literally crush you if you don’t get it right. I created a tool to calculate food or menu costs that you can download here and start to use right away.

Anyway, here’s what’s included in your product cost:

• Ingredients (plus shipping!)
• Packaging
• Labor

If you have your own kitchen, you’ve also got things like rent, utilities, etc. Ultimately, you need to make and sell enough product to leave the lights on, right?

Related Reading: Menu & Recipe Cost Template – Download My Spreadsheet

8. Decide how you’re going to produce your product

There are a lot of ways you could produce your product. For some of you, your home kitchen is perfect. There are many states with cottage food laws that allow you to run a small business out of your kitchen. That means you can produce products in your house for public sale. There are limitations on process, revenue, and how you can sell, but they are fantastic programs to get started.

You could also use a church kitchen, community kitchen, shared kitchen, restaurant kitchen – or if you want you can have someone else make your product. That’s called co-packaging – and I wrote an entire guide on getting started with co-packing.

Ultimately, there’s no right or wrong answer – I’ve produced three food products three different ways. It all depends on where you on with your business.

9. Check out your competitors at the grocery store

This is a covert operation because many large grocery stores – and even specialty stores – discourage photography. But, with a smartphone, you can snap a shot quickly. I have written a lot on test marketing your food product in my book, but here’s three reasons why it’s so important:

1. It helps you position your product – are you going to be at the bottom of the market or the most expensive?
2. It helps you get an idea of shelf space – how much bbq sauce is on the shelf? Is there room for you?
3. It helps you identify local competition – If you make spice blends, your direction competition probably isn’t McCormack – it’s the other guy making spice blends in your town.

10. Read up on how to become the best salesperson

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My top selling whole grain mustard.

Your hot fudge sauce isn’t going anywhere unless you can sell it. And a lot of food producers just want to make their product. Not you, though. You’re going to become a sales master. You’re going to get your product into a handful of stores when it first launches, right? YES. I’ve been reading a lot of sales books and blogs to get better at personal selling – whether it’s at a farmer’s market or a new retailer. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Neuromarketing
• Brainfluence
• Spin Selling
• AdWeek Copywriter’s Handbook (for writing sales copy, emails, etc)
• Tony Robbins article

Just one of these books is going to help your sales game. By the way, I don’t get any compensation for recommending these books. These are guides that have help me along the way. You can also check out my book on starting a specialty food business on Amazon titled Food Business Secrets. Read-up!

11. Know what you’re good at – and outsource the rest

This is hard for any business owner: you want to do everything, but that’s simply not possible. That means you have to think about what you love to do. The part of your business that keeps you going through the long nights and weekends.

Do that. And outsource many of the other business functions. I realize when you’re starting out, you don’t have a lot of cash to have other people do things for you. You’ll get there. Heck, I’m not there yet either. But I want to be. It’ll feel amazing once something HUGE is off your plate, won’t it?

12. Make your sell sheet (aka giant billboard)

This is basically the food industry’s version of a billboard. Your sell sheet is a giant business card – beautifully designed, I might add – that tells retail buyers and distributors about your company, your products, and sometimes includes pricing. Here’s a great article I wrote on sell sheets with examples.

Again, if you’re not design-inclined, hire a college student looking to build their portfolio – they’ll love the work! Or, use one of the sites I mentioned above to get your sell sheet designed.

You Might also Like: The Economics of the Fried Chicken Sandwich

13. Make a list of retailers in your area

Where are you going to sell your product? Are you going to sell to retailers in your area? What about farmer’s markets? Are they sustainable to build  business? Or, you could go the food service route and sell only in bulk. Finally, take advantage of technology and sell online – lovely margins to be had!

Whatever strategy you choose, it’s time to get listy! Write down a list of stores you’d love to see your product in. Include the big stores (you know, the kind-of-impossible ones?), small specialty stores, bakeries, farmer’s markets, restaurants, etc. Then, use your super-ninja sales skills to get into some retailers.

Bonus: Here’s what to bring to your retail buyer appointments.

14. Find sources for your ingredients

If you don’t get a little bit nerdy with math, specialty foods (aka manufacturing) might not be for you. You’ve got scrutinize every penny that goes into your product cost – and constantly find ways to decrease it. One of those ways is to find better sources of ingredients. In many cases, that means you’ve got to stop buying from grocery stores (maybe).

Here are a couple ideas:

• Food Service Distributors
• Warehouse stores (Costco, BJ’s, etc)
• Online bulk suppliers
• Grocery stores (special order only)

Buying bulk can get pricey for a small food producer, but it pays off with a lower product cost. And lower product cost means a higher margin for you. That really means more money in your pocket. Heck yes.

15. Find a local group of other food producers

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Check out my companion guide: 25 Mistakes I’ve Made Running My Food Business

There seems to be groups for everything – cat lovers, rock climbers, and knitters. Oh, and there’s tons of groups for small food producers just like you. There are a ton of LinkedIn Groups (just search food business). But, if you’re looking for face-to-face and online interactions, consider becoming a member of the Specialty Food Association. The Vermont one is awesome — great benefits and seasonal meetups where I learn a ton.

Getting together with people who know what it’s like to be in your shoes is a relief. You can all complain about price increases in packaging, getting your product into stores, and putting your head in your hands when you view a profit & loss statement. And don’t forget successes! We’re all in this together. Be excited for you buddy who’s hot sauce company landed it’s first account in NYC. Celebrate each other’s wins!

16. Promote your company to family & friends

Now that you’ve got your “beta” version of your product, it’s time to announce it to the world. You’re going to need the power of the people to get your food company out there – so let’s do some promoting. Post on Facebook, twitter, and other social media channels (you could even pay for promotion if you want).

But, the best promotion is email.

Make sure you have a way to collect emails on your website. Email is gold. It basically prints money when you send one out – especially when you build up that loyal fan base of yours.

For now, send an email to your family and friends, letting them know about your company (and if you’ve landed a few retailers, let them know that, too). Promote it to enough people, and you’ll get a nice bump in website traffic from your family and friends sharing your company with their own circles! Happy promoting!

17. Talk to a store buyer to get the lay of the land

Haven’t approached a buyer quite yet? It isn’t too intimidating – and many of them are willing to help small food producers out.

If you get a quick 10-minute meeting, try to present your product, see where it be merchandised in the store, and get a feel for how distribution to the store works. Tip: do this with a small, local store. You’ve got to get your ducks in a row before you approach the big boys.

18. Design point-of-purchase materials

How are people going to know about your product? Point-of-purchase (POP) materials are a great way to shout from the shelf about your product. And they come in many different flavors.

You can do shelf talkers which extend from the shelf, c-shelf signs which fit into the lip  of the shelf, or you could even do a shipper – that’s where the product is shipped in a custom-printed box that gets displayed away from the aisle.

If you’re just starting out, stick with the basic signs. Shippers will set you back a few thousand dollars (and I’m sure your spouse won’t appreciate having a stack of them in the dining room).

19. Land your first sale (take a deep breath!)

It’s game time! Let’s go make some money. You’ve read your sales books, memorized your 30-second food product pitch, and have all your materials ready. You got this.

If you need more help, here’s a great resource in our free food business startup kit.

20. Deliver your product (make sure this is included in your cost)

You got your first sale! Woot Woot!

Now, you’ve got to deliver the purchase order. Time to load up the car, right? Well, not exactly. Explore the different delivery options you have. There’s personal delivery (which is what you’ll likely be doing for the first few months), paid delivery (which is where you pay to have your product delivered via a service), or shipping via USPS, FedEx, UPS.

Whatever delivery method you use, make sure your cost is incorporated into the pricing you’re showing retailers and distributors. For example, if you make $12.00 on a case of product, but it costs you $10 just to drive there and back (plus your time), you’re not making a penny. Get friendly with addition and subtraction to make sure your delivery methods are making you money.

21. Focus on moving product in your first store

A lot of food producers ask me “how do I get into more stores?” Well, that shouldn’t be your focus. Your focus should be on generating more sales at a smaller group of stores.

Then, you can replicate your proven strategy out to 10, 20, 50, or even 100 stores. If you pushed to get your product in 100 stores, then you’re faced with moving that product – and no plan. Get your plan in place by working individually with retailers to move more product.

How do you move more product? You could run a sale, participate in a demo, do events in the area and drive people to the store, promote on social media, put up a shelf-talker. There are tons of ways!

22. Revisit your product cost

More math? Seriously? Yes. I’ve included this on my list because it’s crucial to your success. In the food biz, ingredients, packaging and labor fluctuate. That means your cost goes up or down.

Make sure you’re keeping an eye on it! Review your cost of goods sold with every production. Check ingredient prices, your packaging invoices (with shipping!), and your labor rate (did you pump out the blackberry jam as fast as you did last time?).

Here’s a clear-cut example: I made the mistake of not updating my product cost, so that altered my profit margins and ultimately my income. Not only had a couple of my ingredients gone up in price, put my glass was more expensive, and labor was spread across the board. We’re talking like $0.10/unit. Now, I have better control of it – you should, too. Don’t lie to yourself.

Remember, I built a food product-cost calculator – it’s free.

23. Start selling online

If I could build a food business solely on the internet, I would (and believe me, I’m working towards it!). The internet is a powerful thing – and ripe for systems. As the son of a materials engineer, I’m a sucker for details, precision, and systems. Online sales can be automated – from fulfillment to shipping. And your margins are crazy good.

While I could talk about selling your product online, other people have done it way better. Here are my favorite resources:

• Ecommerce University
• A Better Lemonade Stand
• The HelpScout blog

Don’t have an online store yet? Shopify is crazy awesome – and has become the go-to resource for many name and small brands over the past 5 years. I’ve been using it for quite a while and my sales have increased dramatically once I got started.

24. Find a team-member – or several

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Team work makes the dream work!

It took me almost four years to realize I needed some help. My business was growing and I couldn’t control it. My parents were helping where they can – shipping packages and doing events – but I needed more. I’ve brought on interns from the local college for temporary relief, but it’s time to find a partner – and you should, too.

Starting a business – in any industry – is hard to do alone. (It’s definitely possible, though). Go to local networking events, search LinkedIn and start asking family and friends who they may know.

Partnering up means someone else has skin in the game – it’s not just you. And that leads right into my last step – one of the most important on the list.

25. Take the day off

How many things do you have to do right now – besides the 25 I’m giving you on this page? Probably hundreds – and it all has to get done immediately, right? If you’re like me, you’re immersed in your business all day – with little breaks. What do you do? You take a break. Go for a walk, call a friend, head out to lunch, work-out, play with your kids outside.

Whatever it is – your business does not always have to be at the top of your list. Take a break – a couple days off if you have to. You need to recharge or you might burnout. And burnout is detrimental to launching your food business.

That’s the end of the quick guide!

Tackle as many steps as you’d like at a time – maybe one a night after you get home from your full-time job. Or take the weekend and blow through 10 of them. There’s a good amount of paper work that needs to get done and Sunday mornings are perfect for that!

Just a heads up, too — this isn’t an exhaustive list of what to do, but it gives you a great starting point – and a to-do list – to bring your product to market.

Looking for help getting started?

You can get involved in the community by signing up for our food business startup kit. When you sign up you’ll get immediate access to our newsletter, food business canvas template, and other bonuses we only make available to subscribers.

Don’t forget to have some fun on the start of your food business journey too. Leave a note in the comments below and share the idea you’re working on. Now that you know the 25 steps to take to start your a specialty food business, check out the 25 mistakes you should avoid at all costs based on my own experience.

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The post 25-Step Plan to Make Your Food Company a Reality appeared first on Food Truck Empire.

This is an emergency podcast episode for restaurant owners that need more customers right now.

In these challenging times, people are staying at home, watching Netflix, and spending even more time on their phones than ever before. Much this is being spent scrolling through Facebook and Instagram feeds.

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Is your restaurant advertising on Facebook or Instagram?

Today’s episode is all about putting your restaurant in front of these “at home” consumers using social media advertising so your restaurant is the obvious option for delivery, take out, or curbside meals.

If the thought of advertising in this economy, gets you worried.. Don’t be. This doesn’t need to expensive or technically challenging for you to get results. As you’ll learn in today’s interview you can start seeing serious results for your restaurant with a targeted ad budget of only $100 a week.

Targetable is providing emergency support for all restaurants the next two months.

What You’ll Learn

• What type of advertising is working right for restaurants on Facebook and Instagram.
• Reasons you shouldn’t worry about general branding in this environment.
• Why every social media ad should include these three components right now:
  1. How do you get the food to customers?
  2. What’s the menu?
  3. How do customers contact you?
• How to build community for your restaurant around things like sports or other interests.
• What type of social media advertising budget you should have for a restaurant.

Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Targetable requires as little as 10 minutes a week for its ads to begin reaching new customers on Facebook and Instagram. You don’t need to worry about image rights or ad setup – it’s all generated and bundled together in minutes so you can get started fast.

As part of Targetable’s commitment to the restaurant industry they are also offering two months of free services to restaurant and food trucks so they can generate more take out, delivery, and curbside sales for their business during this difficult time.

If you’ve been wondering how to increase sales in the current environment this is a low-risk opportunity worth exploring.

The post How to Run Social Media Ads for Restaurants in 2020 appeared first on Food Truck Empire.

Renee Kleiner joins on us on the podcast to share some of the common mistakes restaurants make when preparing their taxes and specific ways to avoid them. It’s the time of year when most business owners are starting to think about filing taxes so this is a timely discussion.

Renee is the owner of Kleiner’s Keeping a service company that focuses on the books, so you can run and grow your business. Renee’s business help small businesses with virtual bookkeeping and payroll for small businesses, including restaurants. Renee spent years working in the restaurant industry and deeply understands the challenges restaurants face when preparing and submitting taxes. 

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by our amazing sponsor Gusto. If you manage payroll for a team of employees, Gusto makes it easy to file and pay taxes in easy an automated way. Learn more and get a discount on services here.

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Here is a list of five tax mistake restaurant owners make. 

We dig into each of these topics in-depth inside the podcast. 

1. Missing tax deadline: Everyone knows the deadline to submit taxes in the United States is April 15th. But if you don’t have expenses and paperwork properly organized, it can be easy to miss this deadline while you organize everything. Even if you get your box of receipts and expenses to a tax preparer in time, it can take these professionals a lot of time to sort through the information and also be very costly in the process. Get started filing early and if there is a surprise that holds up the process you’ll have the extra time available. If you still can’t meet the deadline, the IRS will usually allow you to file an extension. 
2. Misusing (or ignoring) the home office deduction: Do you have a dedicated space in your home that’s used to manage your business. Make sure to take advantage of this home office deduction if it applies to you. Contrary to some rumors, taking advantage of the home office deduction is not a flag to the IRS to conduct an audit. In most situations you can take deductions on 300 sq. feet of home office space on your taxes. If your office is bigger than 300 sq. feet, I’d love to see your house! To qualify this must be a dedicated room utilized exclusively for working on the business. 
3. Failure to distinguish / separate personal and business expenses: The easiest way to separate personal from business expenses is to setup different accounts. This arrangement can be setup quickly and easily through any bank. Make sure you’re not using the business card for any personal expenses. This advice is particularly important for restaurants with multiple owners and investors.
4. Hiring the wrong tax preparer: This can be a tough one especially if you’ve just started a business. It’s hard to identify a good tax preparer from a bad one. As a general rule of thumb, find someone with experience helping restaurant owners. They will understand the sorts of deductions you should be taking and help minimize the tax burden. It’s not usually the best idea to have someone that specializes in personal taxes to file taxes for your business. While they might be fantastic at filing taxes for individuals, filing for businesses is generally more complex. 
5. Failure to accurately and clearly track expenses and income: Thanks to modern POS systems tracking income has become much easier. But these systems don’t always integrate easily all the data you need to compile for tax purposes like expenses.  

At the end of the day, staying organized throughout the year will make it infinitely less stressful when it comes time to file your taxes next year. Aside from making life less stressful, you’ll have a clear understanding where your business is at from a financial standpoint. This is essential for projecting revenues and if you ever decide to put the business up for sale. 

You Might Also Like This: How I Opened a Restaurant with No Money and a 540 Credit Score

The post Five Restaurant Tax Mistakes and How to Avoid Them appeared first on Food Truck Empire.

Want to look inside the business plan of a real food truck business? We’ve organized detailed business plan templates from successful food trucks and made them available to you in PDF and Word doc in this post. In addition to offer templates, we give you detailed instruction how to complete each section of the plan using this guide.

Before we dive in, keep in mind that it could take weeks if not months of planning to develop a business plan that’s helpful. Whatever time takes for you to write the business plan will be well spent. When researched correctly this document serves as the “game plan” for operating your entire mobile food business and sets the direction of your company.

Approach this document seriously because it can become the roadmap to operate your business and ensure you’re set up for success. When you’ve finished writing your plan, you should know where you plan to vend, estimated food costs, the marketing plan, and how you’ll raise money for the food truck. Pretty important stuff right? Let’s dig in.

Food Truck Business Plan Guide 

• Introduction
• Download Templates
• Components of a Food Truck Business Plan
• Executive Summary
• Mission Statement
• Company Concept
• Market Analysis
• Management Structure
• Product Line and Services
• Sales and Marketing
• Funding Request
• Financial Projections
• Appendix
• Bonus Tips

Introduction

I want you to get the most value possible out of your business planning process. Why? I believe having an accurate business plan gives you the best odds of success for operating a profitable food truck.

And if you’re going to be investing tens of thousands of dollars into a food truck or trailer, cooking equipment, and permits, why not invest a few days creating a detailed plan for how to run the business.

Here’s one example why going through this process can be helpful from our Annual Food Truck Academy class, where train future food truck owners how to start a food truck. One student completed her research estimating food cost, overhead, and anticipated sales as part of her business plan. Then she came back and revealed that based on her current plan, the food truck wouldn’t be profitable. After factoring in tax, labor, and food costs there were no profits left over.

Our student was initially discouraged by the numbers, but I was happy. It’s much better to identify a revenue short-fall before you start the business than months after when you see sales coming in, but can’t figure out why there’s nothing left in the bank account. As a result of the work invested on the front end through planning, she was able to evaluate her ingredient cost and pricing to create a business plan that set herself up for success.

Still, many first time food vendors don’t take the time to put in this work. It’s a shame because it’s so easily avoidable.

One more tip before we get into researching and writing the business plan, don’t get overly hung-up on the structure of the document. Unless you plan to apply for a small business loan (then you will need to be more concerned about formatting, but let’s worry about that later), you’re not going to be graded on how pretty the document looks or how nice the nice fonts and illustrations. This isn’t an assignment for school where you’re going through the motions to get a B.

Instead focus your energy on making this plan useful for your business. Find specific locations that you plan to sell food. Get the contact information for these venues to learn how you can get into them. Figure out your exact food cost and how much it’s going to cost to get permits in your area. Putting ink to paper or word document is going to make the operations of your business real.

Now let’s get on with making your game plan!

Note to Reader: This is part of a series of posts following the process of starting a food truck with Anthony Salvagno (featured in the image below) as he writes a business plan, seeks funding, develops a concept, builds a menu, and ultimately launches his first food truck. Listen to the audio lesson inside this post to learn more about writing a winning food truck business plan.

The person that doesn’t have one [a business plan] sets themselves up for failure. – Anthony Salvagno on the importance of thinking before leaping into a business.

Serious about Starting a Food Truck? Click Here To Get Our Free Food Truck Business Kit.

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Download Business Plan Templates

In my opinion, this case study is most effective when listening to the audio and downloading the example that Salvagno was kind enough to provide for this post. I’ve also linked to other resources that can help you write your own business plan.

It-Up-Business-Plan-for-Submission.pdf">Download Business Plan – Yes, this is the PDF business plan used to acquire $5,000 for a food truck during a business pitch competition. This document is referenced in the companion podcast.

Download Business Plan Template – Here’s a sample template you can use and edit for your own truck.

SBA – Create Your Business Plan – The Small Business Administration (SBA) does an excellent job outlining the steps needed to create a business plan. It’s not food truck specific, but it gives you what you need and there’s plenty of valuable information here.

You can learn a lot by reading business plans for other food businesses like restaurants as well. Operating a profitable restaurant is similar to operating a successful mobile food business. The main different is that a trailer is that it’s mobile.

Components of a Business Plan

Below is an outline of the key sections you’ll need to complete for a standard business plan with a description of how each section applies to a food truck or trailer business. Complete each section and you’ve got yourself a real plan for your business my friend.

Keep in mind that if you’re creating this document for yourself and not a banker you don’t need to get fancy with the formatting. The important thing is to have a detailed plan for the business before you open. If you feel the burning desire to make this look nice, you can make formatting updates after the

Executive Summary:

This is an overview of the information contained in the business plan and should introduce the name of your food truck and the food you plan to serve. This section should only be one page in length. Give readers the high-level overview of what the plan. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to dive into the nitty gritty in the next sections of the document.

The purpose of this section in most business plans is to give prospective investors information about your startup. Lenders reviewing a small business loan might be another audience, although they will be much more focused on financial side of things. But for most of our readers this section is for you, a business partner, and potentially a spouse.

For our It-Up-Business-Plan-for-Submission.pdf">Executive Summary we included 2 – 3 sentences describing these important aspects of the business. The provides anyone reading this document with a general understanding of what the business is and how it expects to make money:

• The food item we plan to sell and specialize in.
• The key people that will manage the business. In this case, the food truck will be owned and operated by two partners.
• The business entity we plan to form. We formed an LLC.
• Where you plan to operate the business and hours of operation. Our initial plan had us operating 5 days per week for lunch and dinner.
• The basic marketing plan. Again you’ll dive into the details in the marketing and sales portion of the document.
• Projected cost to fund the business and anticipated revenue.
• Future goals. How will you know you’ve won? For some this will be a specific revenue number and for others this could be opening up a franchise with 100s of locations.

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A snippet of the executive summary or our food truck.

Again, unless you plan to bring on outside investors don’t worry too much about perfect formatting in the executive summary. This is to ensure you and your partners are clear on the high-level plan for the business.

Food Truck Mission Statement:

The mission statement for a food truck can be as short as a sentence or as long as a paragraph. This statement should define what you plan to serve, who you will serve, and the ultimate vision for the business. When done right the mission statement should guide every major decision you make for the business.

Here’s the mission statement from our business plan as an example: 

When a mission statement is done right it should actually influence how you operate and run your business day to day. For example, since the utilization of local ingredients is part of our mission statement, we’ve got to actively be looking for local suppliers to buy inventory. If we don’t, we’ve failed.

We also need to consider the dietary needs of different groups of people. This impacts the sandwiches we put on our menu every day. Again, if we don’t do this, won’t reach the goal we’ve set out to achieve.

A mission statement can be the most influential part of the business plan when it’s used the right way. On the other hand, this guide can be forgotten when it’s not used to guide decisions. To learn more about making impactful mission statements, watch this interview to go deeper on the subject.

Company Concept and Description:

This is the fun part. Here you will describe what you hope the food truck will become, the food you plan to serve, and why you believe it will be a successful business. For most food trucks this section only needs to be a few paragraphs in length.

Make sure to include information on why your food is both desirable and unique to customers in the area. Also, if you have some type of theme, like an island theme for example, include little details like this in the description.

If you plan to operate something more mainstream like taco truck, take the time to express what it is that makes you different in your market. A common way food trucks differentiate themselves is through their ingredients or style. For example, you could be the only taco truck in town that uses organic, locally raised meats. Or you might be the only one in town that specializes in making fish tacos. Find a way to standout and offer something that isn’t available elsewhere.

You want folks that read this section to be able to clearly envision the kind of overall experience they’ll enjoy when visiting your food truck. Here are a few guidelines for writing this section:

• What food will you serve?
• How is your food different than other vendors in the area?
• Is there a specific type of consumer you want to attract?

As you can see from our own business plan, we differentiated ourselves through seasonal menu changes all the time and have menu options that cater to people that require a gluten-free diet. It’s also worth noting that our core product of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is unique to the market.

Market Analysis:

Understand the players in your market before starting a business.

For smaller markets with a couple hundred thousand people living nearby this section might be short and include just 4 – 5 other trucks. However, if you’re entering a market like Los Angeles this section will be larger and more in-depth.

If you’re planning to enter a market that has 10 traditional taco trucks and you plan to start a traditional taco truck too, it will be to differentiate yourself from other vendors in the area.

Consider adding a spin to your own food concept like serving Asian tacos instead to provide local consumers will more variety and fill a potential need. If you’re not sure about the type of truck you want to create yet, looking at the market and seeing what type of food is missing can be a smart way to approach this.

In this area you’ll also want to identify the type of customer that will frequent your establishment. Any data about local trends that you can find will be useful to include as well like this report from IBIS World that forecasts growth in the United States food truck industry for the next 5 years. Google can be a good friend in locating the data to include in the document.

Management Structure:

Most food truck owners start with a management structure of one.

This section is straightforward for most food vendors. You can list yourself as the owner and operator if that applies. But don’t forget about key employees or partners too. Many food trucks need a team of 3 – 5 employees to operate successfully during a lunch rush. Make sure these long-term players are accounted for.

In our business plan, it’s a partnership between brothers. The work load is split up between one brother operating the front of the house and marketing: accepting orders, booking new business and events, emailing and calling catering leads. The other brother focuses more on the chef duties including sourcing ingredients, cooking food, working with suppliers, and ensuring food quality.

Industry Survey Results: What is the Average Income of a Food Truck Vendor?

If you have more than one owner of the business this is where you want to take the opportunity to clearly define roles. This is an extremely important section of the document when multiple parties and their money are involved. By outlining everyones responsibilities in this document, it serves as a record of who was in responsible for certain aspects of the business. The more people involved, the more diligent you need to be with assigning tasks.

If it’s not written down, it’s easy for partners to recall things differently. This will help avoid conflict in the future for all parties involved. You need this.

The more stakeholders involved, the more complicated this section will be. You should also include investors and advisors in this section even when people aren’t excepted to help with the daily business operations. Outline what value these people have delivered to the business and what return they can expect in the future.

Product Line:

Ready-made meals can be a great way to diversify your product line.

Finally… This is the section you finally get to describe your food. I recommend outlining the main menu items and any signature dishes that you have in this section. But don’t stop at just the food that you plan to serve.

Other products and services that you plan to offer could include corporate catering gigs or weddings. These can be the biggest money makers for a mobile food vendor.

It pays to think outside the box too in this section. Some vendors that started out by serving food out the window of a truck exclusively have now begun to sell their trademark dishes in stores, online, or at restaurant. Don’t forget to think about possible paths for growth in the business.

• Previous guest of the show Martie Richie of Motley Crews is an excellent example of someone that is doing just that. They’ve expanded to selling snacks online through their e-commerce website and at local gas stations.
• Malcolm decided to open a restaurant to attain more consistent sales, especially through the slow winter months.

Sales and Marketing:

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A food truck can serve as a mobile promotional platform.

How do you plan to market your business and get sales? One of the biggest factors that determine the success / failure of a lunch truck is location. Will you be able to get into major events or areas with a lot of potential customers?

One of the biggest favors you can do for yourself to input into your sales and marketing plan is to create a tentative list of places you might be able to vend. Get extremely granular with this task. In fact, it might even help to print out a map to evaluate where the best potential vending locations are in your area.

Here’s the information you should gather as part of this process. You can add this information inside the sales and marketing section of the business plan as you gather it. 

• Name of the vending location and cost details.
• Contact information including telephone, email, and address. Ideally a dedicated point of contact in charge of booking vendors.

Here are some locations that work well for food trucks:

• Farmer’s markets: You can usually find vendor information listed on the website.
• Annual events: Browse your cities website for a list of upcoming events like car shows, fairs, or parades.
• Social Media: One of the easiest ways to find good vending locations is to monitor the social media accounts of popular food trucks in your city. If they are vending somewhere, it’s probably a lucrative location that you might be able to vend at as well.
• Corporate Workplaces: Big corporate employers with a few thousand employees working at a single location can be a good option for generating consistent lunch sales.
• Breweries and Wineries: Places like this often don’t want to build in a restaurant into their operations and partner with mobile food vendors to supply food to guests.

Pro Tip: Make sure to have a a lot of  different parking location options before getting started. Not every location you try is going to be profitable. By developing a big list of opportunities upfront, you won’t feel stressed about vending options because your dream vending location didn’t work out.

There are an endless number of tactics you can use to attempt to drum up business in the early days, but for most successful food business getting into events with big hungry crowds is the first step to building a brand locally and gaining traction. Learn more about finding profitable vending locations here.

Funding Request:

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Just another day on the food truck.

The key to a good funding request is knowing exactly how much money you need and having a detailed plan explaining how you plan to use it. For food truck owners, the biggest early expense will be in buying a food truck and the kitchen equipment installed onboard.

You should also account for the amount of money you’ve raised or have on hand in this section. In our business plan for example, we were looking at $55,000 all-in to start the business. This would include the purchase of a food truck, our initial inventory of food, and permits. Be extremely diligent in outlining how you intend to spend every dollar in this section. It will safe you time late in the process and lenders will appreciate your attention to detail.

We were able to bring $14,850 or 27% of that total investment to the table that was raised mostly through personal savings, a small crowd funding campaign, and winning a business plan contest. The remaining 73% was acquired through the help of a small business loan. Being able to start a real food business like this for below $15,000 out of pocket is pretty cool.

Reader’s Note: If you’re not planning to seek funding through a traditional bank (or are simply planning to take out a personal loan based on your credit history) you can technically disregard this section, although you should still analyze closely how you intend to spend your money.

If you plan on asking for friends and family for money this attention to detail can help too. Even if they’re not in the food industry, it’s easy to understand that a commercial oven or fridge could cost a few thousand dollars. If you have a specific use for funds that makes sense, it increases the likelihood of obtaining a loan with friendly terms amongst family.

Financial Projections:

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Detailed financial and cash flow projections from the business plan.

This is an extremely important area to spend time on before starting a food truck. I’d argue this section is as important as the product, sales and marketing plan of the business plan. This section will offer your first insight into whether or not the business idea you have is going to work or not in its present form.

From a practical standpoint, the main thing you want to figure out is what your break-even point for the business is. In other words, how much food do you need to sell in order to pay all of your monthly expenses? This is a simple, but critical question you must find the answer to before getting started.

You can determine the break-even point for a food truck business with this formula: 

Fixed Costs / (Price – Variable Costs) = Bread Even Point

Here’s the due diligence you’ll need to complete to find the break-even point for your food truck:

• Add up the total monthly expenses you expect for the food truck to find your fixed cost number. This number will include loan payments, insurance, cell phone, and everything else you need to pay on a monthly. Use our guide to create a quick estimate of monthly costs.
• The price refers to how much you plan to charge customers and how many sales you anticipate in a given month. From your perspective the less sales you need to break even the better as it will.
• The variable costs is the expenses you put into cost of goods sold. In your case this if the food you’re selling. As you sell more, your variable cost will also increase because you need to buy more product. This is a good thing!

Based on your current fixed cost and variable cost estimates, find out how many total sales of your food total you would need to generate to pay all your bills. Does that number seem seem attainable based on the frequency you plan to vend each month?

Figuring out what your sales is going to be in the future will be the biggest leap of faith you make in the business plan. I always urge people to be being super conservative with sales estimates. You are going to have slow days and extremely busy days when you get out into the real world. Being financially ready for challenging times will make your business more resilient.

Forecasting Financial Projections:

In the financial projections, focus on estimating how much money you will make in the first year of the business. Investing too much time on longterm projections 5-years out doesn’t make any sense since you haven’t actually started the business yet. After the business has been operating for about a month, you’ll want to go back and review the previous estimates to ensure everything is making sense.

While estimating the projected revenue will require some guessing, figuring out startup and monthly operating expenses once the business gets going is much simpler. While there might be unexpected expenses that pop up before opening the business, you already know the monthly bills like insurance, phone, inventory, loan payments (if you have one), commissary.  Read our post that includes a spreadsheet on the Complete Breakdown of Food Truck Operation Costs for help researching this section.

Here are a few other quick tips for the financial projections section: 

• Always start a business with some extra capital on hand and establish an emergency business fund. We suggest $3,000 – $5,000 minimum. You don’t want to find yourself underfunded going into the second week so and not be able to purchase supplies. Unfortunately, break downs also happen in this business so you want to be ready for them.
• You’ll need to be comfortable making a few “educated guesses” in this section especially when it comes to revenue projections. Always be conservative with sales estimates. If you do end of exceeding expectations then that’s fantastic.
• The primary goal of completing this process is to understand how much money you’ll require to operate the business and break even on a monthly basis. After determining a break-even, find out how much it will require to pay yourself a comfortable wage after taxes.

Appendix:

This is the place to include your permit from the health department, photos of the vehicle, and other legal documents needed to operate a mobile food business. This is a good spot to add photos of food or people smiling and enjoying your meals at events (if you’ve vended at an event already). Add in anything else you feel could be helpful too.

Bonus Tips When Creating Your Building Plan

Here are a few key concepts pulled straight from the audio companion of this guide.

• Don’t be afraid to ask current food truck owners for help when writing a plan. They have the best understanding of what the market looks like and may even help you to create more accurate market projections. Not everyone will be willing to lend a hand, but some might.
• The financial projections section is the most important and practical element of the business plan. You need this to be able to evaluate how much money you’ll to start the business and what prices you’ll need to charge for longterm success.
• Don’t invest a ton of your time into longterm projections especially years 3, 4, and 5 of the food truck. Restaurants come and go. You won’t be able to make accurate projections out that far anyway.
• You should be extremely detailed when estimating expenses. Including often overlooked items like sandwich wrappers, napkins, mops, buckets, and cleaning supplies. Knowing how much cash you need for day one of starting the truck right is critical.

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Is Creating a Business Plan a Total Waste of Time?

Good question. That really depends on who you ask.

There’s a whole group of like savvy entrepreneurs and business people who don’t believe in the business plan at all. They’re like okay, you have this written document that you never ever use again. But then there’s this whole other group of people that actually believe in the business plan.

If you’re planning to try to get a traditional bank loan you will need to create a business plan. Having a written plan does not guarantee you will be approved for a loan. In fact, you might get turned down even with an okay credit history.

While it’s not perfect, I firmly believe going through the process of writing a business plan, when taken seriously improves your chances of success. You want to understand your competition. You want to understand where you plan to park. You want to have a few ideas about how you might market your business and what your overhead is going to be before starting the business. This document helps you make more educated decisions based on the work you’ve put in.

The Bottom Line: Will drafting a detailed business plan like this one take a long time? You bet it will. If you do it right, it could easily take a month or two to complete. But the benefits of doing so can be worth it and pay dividends for the life of your business.

So what’s the next step? I suggest enrolling in our free food truck business kit to learn more about the startup process. 

The post How to Write a Food Truck Business Plan – Download Template appeared first on Food Truck Empire.

In today’s episode of the podcast, we catch up with Natascha Hess of The Ginger Pig in Colorado. Natascha was in our first ever Food Truck Academy program a few years back and has gone on to have tremendous success, including being awarded the Best Food Truck in Denver.

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Fast forward a couple years, Natascha is opened her first restaurant at Rosetta Food Hall in Boulder, Colorado. If you live in the area be sure to give the restaurant a visit for authentic Asian street food.

This interview is an excerpt from part our annual Food Truck Academy class earlier this year where Natascha shared her insight into what it takes to start a successful food business, including how much work it is to stay open consistently over the long haul.

pig-2-1024x534.png" alt="" class="wp-image-27843">The Ginger Pig.

If you’re serious about starting your own food truck business, sign up to be notified when the next class opens up in early 2020. It’s been almost one year since we’ve held the last Food Truck Academy and will more than likely only be opening it one time the the next year. One of the unique elements of being part of these classes is the opportunity to get access to food operators like Natascha and ask any question you would like.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by our amazing sponsor Gusto. If you manage payroll for a team of employees, Gusto makes it easy to file and pay taxes in easy an automated way. Learn more and get a discount on services here.

The post Catching up with The Ginger Pig appeared first on Food Truck Empire.

Thinking about starting your own coffee truck? In this blog post we guide you through the steps required start a profitable mobile coffee business from someone that’s already done it.

Our goal is to give you the real deal of what it’s like to operate this type of business (spoiler alert: you’ll need to be an early riser) on a daily business to help figure out if this really is the right business model for you.

Learn how to start a small coffee trailer like this one.

Table of Contents

• Background
• Developing a Brand
• Daily Operations
• How much does it cost to start a coffee truck?
• How profitable is a coffee truck?
• Equipment checklist
• License requirements
• Resources

Background

Matt Drew’s story began not unlike other mobile food entrepreneurs I’ve interviewed in the past. Drew was employed as a marketer in a corporate setting and found himself less and less passionate about the work.

Drew also had a daughter on the way and started to question the point of putting in 12 – 16 hours per day for someone else, and ultimately wondered what his legacy would be if he continued down this path. So Drew made the decision to change the trajectory of his life in a big way by starting a coffee truck.

Growing up in the Pacific North West, Drew had a hard time finding a really good cup of specialty coffee in the Dallas area and started his education on how to bring a really great cup of coffee to Texas.

Related Reading: Why Do Coffee Shops Fail? 232 Owners Share Top Reasons

Drew reached out to Coffee del Ray in nearby Plano, Texas, offering to work for free in exchange to learn the business model. In exchange, Drew would share some of his marketing / branding expertise with the organization. And so began Drew’s journey toward owning the Mo’ Joe A Go-Go coffee truck.

Listen to the full podcast interview, you’ll learn how Drew created a one-of-a-kind brand for the Mo’ Joe A Go-Go coffee business. From sourcing of product to the equipment used on the truck everything is 100% unique.

Developing a Brand

The first step you need to take in starting a coffee truck business, before you even start thinking about the equipment, the size of cart to buy or the licenses you’ll need to operate is to take some serious time to consider the brand you want to grow.

Whether talking to specialty coffee shop or truck owners that have been successful this is the biggest piece of recurring advice that’s brought up again and again. You can grab a cup of coffee for less than a buck at a gas station. What’s going to differentiate you from everyone else in your market is the brand vision and mission statement.

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Outside an Italian style coffee truck.

We dive deep into the details of developing a unique coffee brand here. But here are some of the specific elements Drew utilized to make his coffee startup:

• Organic Products: Drew emphasized that everything sold on the mobile unit would be organic and sustainably grown whenever possible. This requirement applies to every detail of the business from the food to drinks to the dairy served. The tagline of the business even reflects this: The Freshest Coffee Sustainably Grown and Artfully Crafted.  
• Responsibly Sourced and Fair Trade Beans: One regrettable aspect of the coffee industry as a whole is farmer’s are often located less developed countries have often made the least amount of money from their product. Drew has worked to ensure that the beans purchase with his business are through farms are Fair Trade, meaning they have responsible growing practices and are fairly compensated.
• A Unique Product: By As you can see from the examples above that by following these brand guidelines, it results in a product you can’t get anywhere else locally as a consumer. If you want a cup of coffee with an impactful story behind it there’s only one place to find it.

To have any type of successful food business, you need to be able to differentiate the core product in a meaningful way. By establishing the things that are most important to your business first can make this process easy.

Daily Operations

Wondering what it’s like to operate a coffee truck truck on a regular basis? Here’s what you can expect based on the experience of Drew’s first 3-months in operations. 

The mornings for Drew typically starts at 3 a.m. This has been a challenge because Drew has historically been a night owl. But in order to get the serving windows up between 6:00 – 6:30 a.m., it requires waking up a few hours early to prep for the day, driving to the vending location, and preparing for service.

Here’s what a typical day in the life of a coffee truck owner looks like: 

Prep Work

It takes roughly an hour each day to complete prep work. This includes cleaning for the day, grinding coffee beans, getting drip coffee ready, placing breakfast items like muffins out. Much of this work is completed at a commissary before heading out on the road.

Travel to Vending Location

One of disadvantages of operating any type of food or beverage truck is that you need to commute to a different destination each day. Take the distance between your commissary and vending location into consideration before committing to it.

Commuting to and from your home base is a non-revenue generating activity. The farther you drive the more gasoline you use too. Try to keep one-way drive times under 30 minutes whenever possible as a best practice for saving time and money. 

Running the Coffee Truck

As you might expect, morning is the busiest time for a coffee truck business. Coffee is a beverage most people enjoy after they wake up. As a result, you can expect more traffic before lunch as a general rule of thumb.

But Drew insists that you shouldn’t limit yourself to operating in the AM as a coffee truck. A rush of customers can happen at just about anytime depending on the location. As you get more familiar with your regular vending spots, you’ll start to get a sense of regular cadence between busy and slow times. 

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Refuge Coffee Co. Food Truck.

When you do get the opportunity for downtime, make sure to take advantage of it. Use these breaks as an opportunity to clean the truck, promote the business on social media, or follow up on catering opportunities. 

As Drew stresses in the interview, every day operating a food truck is a little bit different. Be prepared for anything in the early days and recognize that you will be looking for ways to improve processes and operations overtime. 

How Much Does It Cost to Start a Coffee Truck?

Expect to invest $30,000 minimum for a coffee truck that will pass your local health inspections, has quality equipment installed and is reliable. You could easily spend as much as $90,000 depending on the equipment you select and if the truck is brand new.

You might read something on blogs or forums of folks that have been able to get started for less and if you need to get started for under $15,000. It is possible by investing in a coffee cart that is lower cost. But keep in mind that you’ll still need a vehicle haul the unit that isn’t included in these costs. If you already own a truck this is a good option. 

Related Reading: How to Start a Coffee Shop on Your Own Terms

The other thing you want to keep in mind is that the truck is literally the face of your brand. If the truck doesn’t look good on the outside, people will associate the appearance with the quality of your coffee too. You’ll want a vehicle that looks good to give yourself the best chance of success. Going for the 

Keep in mind that the figures mentioned above are broad estimates. Determining the the average cost of a coffee truck is always difficult to answer because it’s a variable cost that will depend on the size, year, equipment installed (this is a big one), business licenses in your area, if you’ll be operating a truck or trailer, and who is building it.

This is a lot like asking someone the average price of a car. The price of a car will depend on the model, age, mileage, and other factors. 

How Profitable is a Coffee Truck?

Based on our survey of 223 full-time food truck owners, over 50% report generating at least $150,000 in revenue per year. Coffee truck owners can expect to see similar revenues if you operate the business full-time and establishing name recognition locally. 

Keep in mind that this survey was conducted with owners that have been in operation at least 2 years. You should not expect similar sales numbers during your first year in business.  

Overall, coffee is a high-profit margin business. A cup of coffee that costs you less than .50 cents to produce can be sold at retail for $2.00 – $3.00 a cup on average. 

This business model works well on a trailer or truck.

You can start to estimate your break even numbers for the business as a whole by determining the cost of your coffee, how many sales you anticipate, and the profit margin of each customer. We always advise putting together a formal business plan to come up with a basic sales forecast. 

As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to shoot for over $100,000 in sales per year as a full-time owner operator. This will ensure you’re able to pay for licenses, the truck, insurance, inventory and other expenses for the business. 

Coffee Truck Equipment Checklist 

This is a checklist of basic equipment installed on a coffee truck.

• Espresso Machine: An espresso machine will be the most expensive single piece of equipment you install on a truck. Expect to pay between $2,000 – $10,000 depending on the model and if you anticipate buying new or used. The usa.com/en_US/gamme/en-us-stella-di-caff/en-us-stella-di-caffe-2-groups">UNIC Stella Di Cafe  is the exact model of espresso machine used by Drew. This is a high-end Espresso machine from Italy. 
• Drip Coffee Maker: A significant percentage of your clientele will want a regular drip coffee. A commercial drip coffee maker will run you around $1,500 – $2,000. But you could invest even more if you want top of the line equipment.
• Grinder: This is required for grinding coffee beans on a daily basis for the freshest tasting coffee. The ballpark cost for a commercial grade grinder is $500 – $1,000. 
• Commercial Refrigerator: You need this to keep milk, cream, and other products cool. Expect to shell out $2,000 – $5,000 for something reliable. 
• 3-Compartment Sink: This is a standard requirement anywhere you operate in the United States. This is needed to washing dishes, spoons, and other cutlery. 
• Plumbing and Water Tanks: You need these to store clean and grey water. This is roughly $2,000 – $3,000 for equipment and installation by a processional. Unless you’re extremely handy, this is not a project you want to take on yourself. 
• Generator: If you plan to operate a coffee truck, don’t cut corners on this piece of equipment. As a coffee truck, you’ll have higher electrical requirements than most food trucks. Espresso machines, drip coffee makers, and blenders all require a lot of energy. You don’t want to lose power when you have a big rush and all your equipment is running. Around $3,000 – $7,000 should be invested on a quiet running generator that won’t scare off customers. 
• Initial Inventory: Don’t forget about a the little things you need to start a coffee truck. Paper cups, stir straws, lids, napkins, sugar packets, coffee beans, cleaning supplies, a plastic garbage can and other necessities add up quickly. It’s essential that you take the time to itemize every little thing you end need to purchase for the truck. As a rough estimate, expect to pay $2,000 for inventory. 

These are the basic components of a coffee truck, but keep in mind that your vision may require additional equipment. Do you plan to serve breakfast sandwiches? Consider a commercial panini maker. Smoothies is another popular option on coffee trucks. In that case you’ll need at least one blend installed.

Take the time to figure out what you plan to serve on the truck and then work backward to determine equipment needs. 

Pro Tip: Drew recommends investing in quality equipment versus the lowest priced because it’s the heartbeat of your business. You don’t want to be dealing with repairs, replacements, and a lower quality product. 

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License Requirements

The permits and license requirements of a coffee truck are different across each city and state in the United States. The bottom line is you will need to figure out the legal requirements to operate the coffee business in your specific area.

That being said these are the standard licenses and permits in most areas:  

• Health Permit: This permit allows you to sell food or beverages to the public. Contact the county health department website you plan to operate for more information on what you’ll need to acquire this essential license. 
• Fire Department: The local fire department will check your HVAC system and fire extinguishers to ensure you meet their requirements. 
• Business license: Establishing a formal business entity whether that’s a sole proprietorship, LLC, partnership or corporation is required in the United States. 
• Vehicle license: Whether you own a trailer or truck, you’ll need a license within the state you plan to operate just like any other vehicle on the road. 
• Food Handlers permit: Many cities and counties require that you take a class and pass a test for handling food. This permit is often required for a coffee truck even if you don’t plan to cook any food on the unit. 
• Special event or temporary permit: If you plan to vend at special events like concerts, you will need to work with the event planner to identify what’s needed and the costs. 

Quotes from the Show

 You want to be able to say, “We’re doing something that nobody else is doing. We’ve got something that nobody else has and this is the only place you’re going to be able to find it.” Because if you can’t say that there’s really nothing compelling to be able to talk about with your brand. – Matt Drew on the importance of branding for mobile food owners. 

My mornings typically start at about 3 a.m…. and that sucks. – Matt Drew on owning / operating a coffee truck. 

What You’ll Learn

• An overview of what it takes to start a coffee truck
• Why finding unique beans and coffees that are unique to your area can be an important branding component
• The reasoning behind Drew’s focus on sustainably grown coffees and no GMO products to maintain brand consistency
• Why fair trade is so important in the coffee industry.
• An introduction to sourcing specialty coffee growers. Really interesting stuff.
• How identifying these specialty growers and establishing relationships can give you a unique marketing advantage over other coffee shops in the area
• Learn about the less consistent rush periods for a coffee truck versus a food truck.
• The difficulty of establishing a local presence without a strong brand
• Some of the equipment needed to start a coffee truck, including an espresso machine (in case you’re a coffee geek Drew uses a UNIC Stella Di Cafe) and drip coffee maker.
• Why a low price point shouldn’t the the main reason for you selecting a piece of equipment for your truck.
• The importance of being flexible when you launch a mobile food business. Don’t let it derail you. Don’t let it get you down.

Resources in the Episode

usa.com/en_US/gamme/en-us-stella-di-caff/en-us-stella-di-caffe-2-groups">UNIC Stella Di Cafe – The model of espresso machine used by Mo’ Joe A Go-Go.

Gusto – Payroll software that’s ideal for small businesses like coffee shops and trucks. They also sponsored this episode.

Heifer International – An organization that fights hunger worldwide by purchasing and donating animals to impoverished communities around the world and providing farming training. This is one of the organization that Drew actively supports and partners with.

Coffee del Rey – This is where Drew got his education in the coffee business. Coffee del Rey is a for profit organization that supports a variety of charities. The concept of using of business funds to help support philanthropic efforts is something that appealed to Drew.

Ultimate Food Truck Case Study – Want to start your own food truck? Check out this case study to learn what the process is like.

Used Coffee Trucks for Sale – Browse our inventory of available used coffee trucks, trailers, and carts. 

57 Global Coffee Industry and Consumption Trends – Learn more about the market opportunity in the coffee industry. 

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