Finding The Best Food Truck Locator App For Vendors And Consumers

Ever since the mobile food industry rolled into the mainstream, there’s been one consistent issue for both vendors and consumers. Finding the best food truck locator. The problem has never been about accessibility, the problem has come from reliability. Websites and applications have popped up for Apple and and Android phones for years. However, none of the developers have kept up with demand, or have stuck with a small region of the country.

Providing accurate food truck information isn’t as easy as you may think. Food trucks pop up and disappear all over the country, daily. Relying on vendors to update their information is a step too far, especially when you are talking about food truck owners who aren’t necessarily tech savvy.

Building A Better Food Truck Locator App

There are numerous food truck apps on the market (too many to list), some good, some bad. At the same time, we are consistently asked our opinions and advice by new app developers on a weekly basis. Here are a couple of lists to help answer many of the questions we receive.

Building A Food Truck Locator For Vendors

Here is a list of ideas for those developers looking for key requirements their applications need to include when looking at food truck vendor needs.

Provide low or no cost services.
Access to large consumer base.
Ease of updating locations.
Allow message linking to social media platforms.
Allow vendors to show future locations.
Provide on the fly food truck menu editing.
Ability to offer online ordering.
Allow interaction with verified customer reviews.
Notification of future food truck events.
Show best locations for vendor to operate street-side.

App developers MUST to give vendors a reason to use their app over the competition. Without this differentiation, why would a food truck vendor either switch from the app they are already using?

Building A Food Truck Locator For Consumers

Here is a list of ideas for those developers looking for key requirements their applications need to include when looking at consumer needs.

Access to up-to-date food truck locations.
Ease in finding food trucks already open near the consumer.
Notification of food trucks opening near customer location.
Access to accurate and near complete list of food trucks in a given region.
Ability to search for cuisine offerings.
Ability to pre-order online.
Allow verified customers to leave reviews.
Notification of future food truck events.
Give promoters a platform to recruit food truck for events.

Putting It All Together

Once a developer is able to take all of these point (and more), the key is to make an app that is affordable. Development, coding and upkeep are all time consuming, so nobody expects these to come for free. The key for developers to understand is that they need to develop a cost structure that is inexpensive for food truck owners and consumers to use, while at the same, making a profit. This has been the biggest struggle we’ve seen. Either the cost of use is too high, or the cost of add-on services leaves a bad taste in the vendor’s craw.

We hope some brilliant app group solves this problem because there is a huge opening for a great food truck locator in the mobile food industry.

The Bottom Line

Finding the best food truck locator has always been difficult. As technology companies continue to come and go, this task will never get easy until one group gains the trust of the entire industry and location updates are made easier through automation.

Do you have any additional issues with food truck locators we may have missed? Share your thoughts on this topic in the comment section, our food truck forum or social media. Facebook | Twitter