3 Ways Your Food Truck Is Losing Money And How To Stop

Since it’s inception, the food truck industry has always been unpredictable. As a vendor, you’ve become used to dealing with fluctuating sales created by factors outside of your control. Due to this, many food truck owners continually think about new ways to increase profitability and stop losing money.

For many food trucks, it’s easy to start spending money on promotions with the hope of increasing new business. While these marketing initiatives can be effective, it’s important to evaluate your current strategy and identify opportunities that may be costing you money.

Food truck profit and loss statements will show you your ordinary expenses, but if you rely only on these documents, you may be missing out on common factors that take away from your profit. The good news is, these hidden problems can be easily solved once you’ve identified them. Today we’ll discuss some ways your food truck might be losing money and what you can do to fix it.

3 Common Ways You’re Losing Money And How To Stop It

Long Wait Times

While long wait times are usually a sign of a successful shift, it is easy for slow service to create a profit cap during your food truck’s peak hours. As carry out and delivery orders become increasingly popular, your staff is no longer focused solely on the customers at your service window.

Maximizing your profits during busy shifts requires a combination of successful scheduling and strong communication. Scheduling too many or too few staff members can lead to slower wait times and frustrated customers. The right balance of staff will keep employees busy while still providing customers with excellent service.

Focusing Too Much On New Customers

One of the most common mistakes made in food trucks is focusing too heavily on new customers and taking returning customers for granted. If your existing customers don’t feel valued, they aren’t likely to return.

While bringing in new customers will also be important to growing your business, focusing on increasing your customer retention by just 2% has the same effect on profits as cutting costs by 10%.

High Employee Turnover

The food service industry is notorious for its high turnover rate. And with the food truck industry continually growing, that problem is only getting worse. While losing staff is not a new problem, the rising cost of employee turnover is directly affecting your bottom line.

Luckily, there are simple steps you can take to increase employee retention. While fair pay is a good start, many employees are not focused on monetary benefits. Investing in growth training for your food truck team is a good place to start.

The Bottom Line

Which of these is the biggest challenge in your food truck? Struggling with long wait times? Losing too staff members or customers? Whatever the problem is, use these suggestions to stop losing money in your food truck business.

Do you have have any additional areas where food trucks are losing money? Also, what tips do you have for the problems we’ve discussed? Share your thought in the comment section or on social media. Facebook | Twitter