Your Ultimate Food Truck Equipment and Supplies Guide

Starting a food truck business and putting your restaurant on wheels sounds good. But before you go ahead, make sure to be prepared well. Food trucks are most successful near business hubs or colleges, but the crucial thing is to notice essential items for your trailer. If you’re looking to get started, keep in mind all the details listed down below.

You can’t cook good food if you can’t prepare it, right? If you’re running a food truck business, you should consider food truck equipment a priority. Make sure your truck is stocked up with all the necessary tools required for food preparation.    

Which equipment do you need on priority? 

Food trucks provide mobile food services, so essentially there is a need for food preparation equipment depending on the kind of dishes you want to serve. 

Here are some tools needed for food preparation-

1. Work tables: Since the first step is to prepare and serve food, work tables must be there. 
2. Cutting boards: As you can’t cut or chop all the vegetables on the table, cutting boards are essential for your kitchen.
3. French fries cutter: French fries cutter is a time saver as you can cut fine-shaped fries in no time.
4. Knives and knife rack: Using a range of knives and keeping them safe is the most important thing for your kitchen.
5. Frying pans: This is another essential item to fry, steam, or saute your food.
6. Saucepans: This can help you prepare your sauces and broths.
7. Food processors: Food processors can help you blend sauces, soups, and other food items you want.
8. Juicers: Juices are never out of demand. You can prepare fresh juices to serve customers.
9. Shredders and graters: These are other essential items for shredding cheese over the food you are preparing or serving.

What is countertop cooking equipment?

1. Cooking appliances: These appliances can include a variety of cooking tools like fryers, steamers, ovens, grills, and many others.
2. Warming and holding equipment: It’s important to keep your food warm until it’s served, to avoid wastage. These types of equipment like fry warmers, kettles, and countertop warmers help to keep food warm, crisp, and ready to serve. 
3. Countertop refrigerators: These appliances are a no-brainer. They keep the food and frozen items intact at recommended temperatures. 
4. Serving equipment: These types of equipment play an essential role in the food truck business. Bio-plastic or styrofoam containers, spoons, and lids are great in terms of hygiene

What are the other necessary food truck supplies?

The first thing is to understand what are food truck supplies. They refer to the raw material, serving supplies, packaging supplies, cleaning supplies, and menu as well. Try to maintain a balance between quality and cost while selecting supplies for a food truck. This approach can save you time and money down the line. 

Supplies are an essential investment in your food truck business, so maintain a digital log of what comes in and leaves.

Here are a few other essential supplies needed in your line of business:

1. 1. Raw material: The materials needed to run your food truck should be first on the list. This could be hard to store due to changes in supply chains and shipping routes. So you should have a backup plan to get all the raw materials you need to stay operational.
   2. Cookware: You need to take care of your kitchen supplies and make sure there’s no room for mistakes. Always keep your food truck stocked with food prep containers and chopping boards. You should keep an inventory of all the items you need to prepare the menu. 
   3. Packaging supplies: These supplies are one of the crucial things you need to serve food. While running a mobile restaurant, you should always take care that you never run out of serving supplies. Always make sure you have a backup plan or a nearby store to get serving material in case you’re out of packaging supplies. 
   4. Sanitizing supplies: Always keep cleaning supplies you need to ensure you meet federal, state, and local food safety standards. Cleaning solutions, disposable gloves, trash cans, and bar rags are just a few things that need on hand for maintaining hygiene.
   5. Menus: Menus are the highly demanded material in a food truck business. It changes hands multiple times, and each time it can either get spilled on or torn. You need to keep a check on how many menus are in hand on your truck. You can also create a menu branded on your truck that is readable to everyone.

What is the difference between equipment and supplies?

Food truck equipment is large and durable items that do not require immediate replacement like ovens, refrigerators, fryers, and turners. Kitchen equipment like griddles and commercial refrigerators need to be cleaned and maintained often.

Supplies, on the other hand, refer to those necessary and fragile items that require replacement very often. Some supplies need a weekly replacement, however, some are to be replaced monthly or even late.

What should be your pricing strategy for the menu?

Setting up a pricing strategy decides how successful your business can be. Getting the right pricing strategy is vital for long-term success. You have to get the right balance between covering all the operational costs and trying not to scare away customers with high prices. 

Your pricing strategy will decide the outcome of your business and your profit. It can determine how many customers come to your food truck and the type of people that visit. It also decides how often they visit and whether they’ll continue coming back. If you have the right pricing policy, you can easily raise your profits!

How can you choose the right location for your food truck business?

Choosing the right location is key to success if you start your food truck business. Pick a location that doesn’t have similar mobile restaurants and has a heavy flow of traffic. It’s a good idea to find the best locations walking around. Be sure that there is parking available nearby. 

If there isn’t a large gathering of people circulating near your truck, you might not succeed as per your plan. Even with a large number of people, it’s important to have a particular schedule so that people can count on you.

The Final Words.

Finding success for your food truck business is not hard if you move step by step. But first, get all the legal permissions and food truck equipment. To maintain hygiene and longevity, purchasing good quality supplies is crucial. 

While setting up a food truck business on the right note is essential, it’s equally critical to have an online presence. Social media marketing can be beneficial for your business if you have just started your restaurant business.

However, if you don’t have the time and expertise for the same, the one-step solution is to automate your food truck’s social media marketing with Practina.

This restaurant marketing software can automatically create and publish posts at a suitable time for your pages. It can consistently maintain your food truck brand’s online presence and help outgrow your competitors.