How to Start a Mobile Food Trailer in South Africa & World Wide

Location & Premises

Before launching your food trailer business, it’s crucial to carefully consider the location and premises. It’s essential to position your food truck in close proximity to your target market. Therefore, when selecting a location, you should consider factors such as the amount of road traffic and accessibility.

Several potential locations to consider include school premises, taxi ranks, shopping centers, industrial areas, parks, and central business districts. Depending on your target market, it’s ideal to locate your food truck in areas that typically have high traffic. Additionally, it’s important to be strategic about neighboring businesses, as partnering with them can be more beneficial than competing against them.

However, it’s also important to avoid setting up your mobile food business in an overly saturated area. Doing so can decrease the likelihood of your business succeeding. Therefore, it’s essential to conduct thorough research to identify the most suitable location for your food truck business.

Equipment For Your Food Trailer Business

When starting your food truck business, you’ll need to have various equipment. The type of equipment you require will depend on the size of your business and the type of products you plan to offer. The most critical item you’ll need is a food truck vehicle. There are numerous food trucks available in the market, with varying sizes and prices. You can either have kitchen equipment inside your food truck, such as stoves, cookers, and refrigerators, or you can prepare the food in a separate kitchen and utilize the food truck for serving food.

Other essential equipment includes refrigerators and freezers, ovens, stoves, cookers, food preparation counters, slicers, mixers, shelving, pots, pans, cookware, tableware, cutlery, and more. Purchasing the food truck, kitchen equipment, and fitting out the truck will likely be your most significant expense when starting a food truck business in South Africa. To reduce startup costs, you may consider buying second-hand equipment. Therefore, you should factor in the costs of purchasing the food truck and kitchen equipment into your food truck business plan.

Products

The products you sell in your food truck will depend on your target market. Typical items found in a food truck’s menu include various sandwiches, burgers, wraps, hot and cold beverages, and other complementary products. Therefore, it’s beneficial to have a variety of meals and products on your menu to cater to different customer preferences. Additionally, offering complimentary services like free Wi-Fi can help attract and retain customers.

Selecting the right suppliers is also crucial when running a food truck business. It’s essential to consider suppliers who can consistently provide affordable and quality ingredients. Here are some examples of foods you can sell:

– Gourmet sandwiches and burgers
– Tacos and other Mexican-inspired dishes
– Asian cuisine, such as sushi or dumplings
– Salads and fresh bowls
– Smoothies and specialty drinks
– Baked goods, such as pastries and desserts

Ultimately, it’s essential to conduct market research to determine your target market’s preferences and tailor your menu accordingly.

Examples of foods you can sell:

• Burgers, Sandwich, Rolls
• Kota
• Pizza
• Meat Dishes (Chicken, Beef, Pork, Lamb, Mutton, Sausages, Fish etc)
• Rice and Pasta Dishes
• Baked goods, bread, toasts
• Tea, Coffee , Alcoholic drinks
• Pap
• Chips
• Chicken meals
•  Ethnic Dishes (Indian Food, Mexican, American, Asian, Italian etc)
• Traditional Dishes
• Ribs
• Amagwinya
• Bunny chow
• Soft Drinks, Juices, Milkshakes, Icecreams, Yorghuts etc…

Your food truck business plan should outline the various products and services that you will provide.

Staff & Management

In order to become a customer-centric food truck, it’s important that you hire employees that are friendly and efficient. Your employees should be passionate about serving your clients. If you want to hit the ground running it is better to hire a team of people who have experience in this business. Your chefs and cooks should be able to prepare quality products, and your staff members should be able to serve customers efficiently on a regular basis.  Inexperienced staff members will need to get extensive training before they can be given critical cooking tasks. Depending on the size of your food truck, the actual number of your staff will vary however, you will need, chefs, cooks, waiters, cleaners, and till operators, security as well as management. Your food truck business plan should cater for the salaries and day to day expenses of your employees.

Some of the day-to-day operations of this business involves:

• Operating machinery (cooking/baking)
• Serving Customers and doing deliveries
• Liaising with /suppliers
• Managing Staff
• Marketing and advertising

When you are handling food products and beverages you should always remain aware and alert by paying attention to how the food and beverages are prepared. Food contamination can cause health issues. It is also crucial to adhere to all industry related safety regulations. These safety measures cover the cleanliness of your environment; how your staff members dress plus how and where food is prepared and stored. Businesses related to the preparation and serving of food can be a great risk, that is why adhering to health and safety regulations is important.

Market

According to a Stats SA retail trade industry report, more than R60 billion is generated from the restaurant, coffee shop, bakeries, and fast-food sector per year. This income includes food, cooked and baked, as well as beverages. Recently, there has been a growing demand in healthy options when it comes to all kinds of food. Consumers are becoming health conscious although low-income groups still remain price sensitive and opt for the least healthy options. There is huge demand in South Africa for food truck products as they can be conveniently located close to the customers. There is also an opportunity for small, specialised food trucks that can offer customers healthy meals especially for the middle to upper income groups.

Is A Food Trailer Business A Good Investment?

There is no denying that there is a reasonable number of food businesses with a large market share in South Africa. Nonetheless, it is still possible for you to own your own food truck brand. Investing in a food truck is a profitable venture, but obviously, this will depend on many factors such as your target market. Apart from the obvious advantages of becoming financially independent and becoming your own boss, running a food truck can be a rewarding way of uplifting your community. Given that the South African market is one of the leading emerging economies on the African continent there is potential for high growth when it comes to the food industry. The food and beverages sector in the country has been growing steadily over the years, thus opening a food truck business is a good investment. Whether you are a young entrepreneur, a professional seeking to start your own business or someone who needs a retirement plan, investing in a food truck is something worth considering.

One thing that can set you apart before investing in any venture is developing a business plan. A well thought out food truck business plan will help you in both the short and long term. There are various risks associated with running a food truck or any other type of business and your business plan should clearly outline these risks and the various ways to minimise them. Also, a business plan will force you to assess whether or not your business model or profitable or not and also help you access funding from banks and other organisations.

PRE-WRITTEN FOOD TRAILER BUSINESS PLAN (PDF, WORD AND EXCEL): COMPREHENSIVE VERSION, SHORT FUNDING/BANK LOAN VERSION AND AUTOMATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

For an in-depth analysis of the food truck business in South Africa, purchase our food truck business plan. We decided to introduce the business plans after noting that many South Africans were venturing into the food truck business without a full understanding of the industry, market, how to run the business, the risks involved, profitability of the business and the costs involved, leading to a high failure rate of their businesses.

Our business plan will make it easier for you to launch and run a food truck business successfully, fully knowing what you are going into, and what’s needed to succeed in the business. It will be easier to plan and budget as the food truck business plan will lay out all the costs involved in setting up and running the business. The business plan is designed specifically for the South African market.

USES OF THE FOOD TRUCK BUSINESS PLAN (PDF, WORD AND EXCEL)

The food truck business plan can be used for many purposes including:

• Raising capital from investors/friends/relatives
• Applying for a bank loan
• Start-up guide to launch your food truck company
• As a food truck business project proposal
• Assessing profitability of the food truck business
• Finding a business partner
• Assessing the initial start-up costs so that you know how much to save
• Manual for current business owners to help in business and strategy formulation

CONTENTS OF THE FOOD TRUCK BUSINESS PLAN (PDF, WORD AND EXCEL)

The business plan includes, but not limited to:

• Market Analysis
• Industry Analysis
• 5 Year Automated Financial Statements [ Income statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, monthly cash flow projections (3 years monthly cash flow projections, the remaining two years annually),break even analysis, payback period analysis, start-up costs, financial graphs, revenue and expenses, Bank Loan]
• Marketing Strategy
• Risk Analysis
• SWOT & PEST Analysis
• Operational Requirements
• Operational Strategy
• Why some South Africans in the food truck business fail, so that you can avoid their mistakes
• Ways to raise capital to start your food truck business in South Africa

The Food Truck Business Plan package consist of 4 files

1. Food Truck Business Plan – PDF file (Comprehensive – 91 pages)
2. Food Truck Business Plan – Editable Word File (Comprehensive – 91 pages)
3. Food Truck Business Plan Funding Version – Editable Word File (Short version for applying for a loan – 44 pages)
4. Food Truck Business Plan Automated Financial Statements – (Editable Excel file)

 

GET THE FOOD TRUCK BUSINESS PLAN (PDF, WORD AND EXCEL) – R470 Only.

We decided to make the business plan affordable to anyone who would want to start the business, and the price for the pre-written business plan is only 470 Rand.

We have several payment methods which you can use.

Payment Method 1 (Instant EFT Using Payfast – FNB, Absa, Standard Bank, Nedbank, CapitecBank, Investec, TymeBank and African Bank. )

Click Buy Now below to purchase. After you have purchased, you will instantly see the download link for the business plan package on the screen. We will also email you the download link. Get instant access to the business plan now!