Having menu specials on your food truck menu is a great idea for a lot of reasons.  Not only does it give regular customers a reason to track down your truck but it gives you something to do with ingredients that would otherwise go to waste, and thus improving food costs. It also gives you the chance to to increase check averages and keeps your kitchen staff’s creative juices flowing.

Why Create Menu Specials For Your Food Truck?

• Add unique items. Menu specials can be used to showcase an item you have limited availability to. Maybe it’s a specific type of vegetable or fish which are only available a few months of the year.
• Keep number of items on your truck low. Menu specials also create efficiency within your inventory. This allows you to reduce waste from particular items from going bad before they are sold. Your specials can re-purpose these items at a discounted price while cutting back on the amount of food you have to throw away.

Warning: Never use food that has passed its usable time. Yes you may be able to cut down on your waste; however you also risk making one of your customers sick while at the same time, damaging your reputation. If an item is bad…pitch it.

• Boost your profits. Menu specials allow you to promote high profit margin items from your menu and give you the chance to offer them at a discount, or even create a regular weekly menu special (Tuesday is Taco Day!). Your customers will appreciate knowing that you are offering these specials and may even make your food truck a regular stop on the days you offer menu specials.
• Use your staff creativity. Consider giving your cooks or staff an opportunity to create items when you plan on offering specials by doing this they will have the chance to be creative, which usually increases morale.

Menu Specials Help You Market Your Food Truck

Changing the menu up can be a great driver for business. Whether its daily or seasonally, there are new opportunities for attracting customers with menu specials. Your loyal customers will renew their love of your truck with these limited-time offerings, and new customers could be inspired to track you down because of a special. Marketing campaigns on social media can help alert existing customers to the new options. You could even use your menu specials as an opportunity to reach out to larger media outlets to highlight the new menu items, as well as highlight the quality experience your food truck already offers.

On most of these days we provide a Did You Know article, please feel free to share them with your customers. They can learn some fun facts about the particular item you are celebrating with your menu specials.

RELATED: Why You Need Food Truck Menu Special

The Bottom Line

Embracing menu specials is a great way for your food truck to keep up with industry trends while being interesting to your local market and staff. Not to forget, menu specials give you an opportunity to increase business and profits.

Do you have any additional thoughts on using menu specials? Share your thoughts on this topic in the comment section or social media. Twitter | Facebook