The First Rule Of Food Trucks: Ethics

Everyone knows food truck owners need ethics, customers, and profits. Unfortunately a lot of food trucks fail because they get the sequence wrong. Ethics concern your moral judgement about right and wrong. Decisions taken within your food truck may be made by you or your staff members, but whoever makes them will be influenced by the culture you have in place.

The decision to behave ethically is a moral one; employees must decide what they think is the right course of action. This may involve rejecting the route that would lead to the biggest short-term profit.

The First Rule Of Food Trucks: Ethics

Why Ethics Are Important

Staff can be distracted by ethical concerns. They lose focus. Distraction causes loss of productivity and increased business costs.
When management does not pay attention to ethical issues, distracting situations can grow.
The reputations of your truck and the staff involved in ethical problems can be damaged.
Employee retention and recruitment can be hurt by the ethical lapses of employees.
Confusion and resentment are likely to develop when there are no clear ethical guidelines for management and workers.

Keep Ethics Front And Center

The most common mistake is to put profits first. When you do, numbers become all-important, and you can justify almost any behavior if it makes money.

Instead, start by doing what’s right and make sure everyone involved in your food truck business does too. Then, focus on customers. The best way to attract and keep them is to treat them well and be incredibly good at providing them wonderful food. Once you’ve mastered the first two elements, you can focus on making money.

The Bottom Line

Several factors play a role in the success of your food truck that are beyond the scope of your financial statements. Organizational culture, management philosophy and ethics in your food truck business each have an impact on how well a business performs in the long term. No matter the size, or level of profitability of your business, ethics are one of the most important aspects of long-term success.

Do you keep ethics at the front of your food truck business? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. You can share your stories on social media. Facebook | Twitter

By Richard Myrick|2018-04-28T09:35:54-04:00Mar 28, 2018|Startup Basics|

About the Author: Richard Myrick

Richard Myrick is an architect by degree (Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, Michigan) who began his career in real estate development and architectural planning. In September of 2010 he created Mobile Cuisine Magazine to fill an information void he found when he began researching how to start a mobile hotdog cart in Chicago. Richard found that there was no central repository of mobile street food information anywhere on the internet, and with that, the idea for MCM was born. Richard also wrote the "Running a Food Truck for Dummies" available in bookstores everywhere and Amazon. You can reach out to Richard by email at: [email protected].