5 Food Truck Efficiency Tips To Drive Up Profits

When running a food truck, it is important to make sure that all the operating systems, processes, and procedures are optimally designed for efficiency. This is a crucial step in creating success for your mobile food business. Here are five tips on how to drive a higher level of efficiency for food trucks that can help drive better higher profitability.

Food Truck Efficiency Tips To Drive Up Profits

Review Systems and Processes

Take a look at the steps employees have to follow to get orders out of your service window. Review the systems in place from the time the product is delivered, prepped, cooked, assembled, and delivery. Process mapping may look messy and inefficient, but they can give you key insights into where your processes work and where they are lacking. By mapping out processes, you can see where service tends to slow down and target which parts of your food truck operations need to change to improve efficiency.

Review Equipment and Technology

What equipment and technology is your food truck using? Technology and equipment must be integrated for it to truly have the most impact, so it is important to review how technology is being used to see where more is needed and where it isn’t.

Having too much equipment is a waste of money, and a waste of your food truck kitchen’s limited space. On the other hand, not having enough equipment can limit your ability to deliver your menu during peak shifts.

Re-examine Kitchen Layout

The design of your kitchen is a critical in the efficiency of your food truck. Inefficiency in the kitchen will drive inefficiencies in the other areas, such as service and operating cost. Physical ergonomics allows your employees use their surroundings to deliver the food your customers expect.

As you look at your kitchen layout, make sure that the design considers both customer and employee, and that these are integrated.

Re-assess your Menu

How difficult is it to prepare your menu items during a busy shift? This is a vital question to assess, since it requires that all the stations of your food truck work together. If one area of the food truck runs well while another one does not, the experience of the consumer will not be efficient. This could lead to customers not returning.

Make sure that all our dishes can be produced efficiently even when your truck is swamped. If you find that some dishes are too hard to prepare during busy times, consider replacing them with simpler dishes.

Manage Labor Deployment

Labor costs are usually the largest or second largest line item for many food truck budgets. The cost of employees is going to go nowhere but up. Some states have already instituted a minimum wage to $15 per hour. Developing the right labor use strategy is critical to the success of food truck. The key is to have the right labor in the right place at the right time to drive sales.

If you plan properly, you will take bottlenecks and roadblocks to efficiency out of the way. This will result in higher sales and profits, that will drive growth. The key is to apply all of these tips at the same time so they support each other. Driving efficiency is the only way to have the right unit economics that can fuel profitable hospitality that lead to brand growth, the ultimate goal of all concepts.

The Bottom Line

It’s a fact that the food truck industry has become rockier for vendors, especially due to shifting regulations. Therefore, it’s more important now than ever that your food truck operation runs like a well-oiled machine. Use these tips to improve the efficiency of your mobile food business.

Do you have any additional tips to help vendors make their food trucks more efficient? Share your thoughts on this topic in the comment section or social media. Facebook | Twitter