You're planning a big corporate meeting or get-together for a couple hundred of your closest friends, and you're faced with the age-old dilemma:
What will I feed my guests?
Of course, you want something fun, different, and unique. But you also want to offer your guests GREAT food. And with the many diets people are following these days – vegan, gluten-free, vegetarian, to name a few – you're struggling to find a menu that can satisfy everyone's palates.
Cue the food truck. Events planners – whether corporate or social – are booking food trucks for their next event because they:
Offer great food with a fun set-up
Have the ability to access almost any location
Still on the fence? Here are four reasons you should consider a food truck for your next meeting or get-together.
1. Food Trucks Can Go Virtually Anywhere
Food trucks are the mobile version of restaurants and can go practically anywhere, which isn't a service many catering companies can offer. The pandemic has changed traditional events, and attendees no longer want to be confined to a large meeting room or event hall with rounds of 10.
Guests enjoy the ability to walk around and mingle, and the fact that the trucks are outdoors, makes them even more desirable! Outdoor food service is ideal for attendees who might be immunocompromised or simply prefer to socially distance, themselves when possible.
So if your event location doesn't have a designated caterer (like you find at hotels and conference facilities), you'll need to book your own. Food trucks have the flexibility to go almost anywhere, making planning easier.
2. Fresh Food & Creative Menus
Over the past five years, the demand for food trucks has grown steadily with the increased interest in fresh street food. People love food trucks so much that the trucks are now creating their own events. True fans follow their favorite trucks on social media to learn where to go next to enjoy their favorite fare.
And while many restaurants shuttered and never reopened due to lockdowns, food trucks were able to adapt and continue to serve their guests, only adding to their popularity. Not only are trucks popular because they serve fresh food made when it's ordered (goodbye chaffing dishes), but the options are a culinary journey of the globe with innovative menu offerings.
3. Cost-Effective
Prices are rising. Everywhere you look! And this means planning your next event will come with a higher price tag. So anyway you can control spending is a win. And believe it or not, as desirable and in-demand as food trucks are, they can also be cost-effective.
The average food truck will cost $10-$25 per person, depending on menu items and the truck's popularity.
Compare this to buffet-style catering, which will run $20-$50 per person.
Or the traditional event catering, which starts at $50 per guest and can go to $120 or higher.
4. Food IS The Event
Traditionally at business meetings, meals have been nothing more than a way to feed guests and give them a break from information overload. But what if the meal became its own event? Food trucks provide a festive backdrop to any professional or social gathering. They are colorful, full of activity, and encourage people to move around. You can even turn waiting in line to place your order into an activity with picture booths and selfie backdrops. Add in a few servers walking around offering drinks, and you've created an event within your event.
The tastes of meeting and event attendees have evolved way past chicken or beef. They are looking for fresh food that is creative and entertaining. And for conference participants who are spending much of their day in one place listening to presenters, they want to get up and move around whenever they have a chance. Food trucks offer choice and a change to the traditional catering options. And if you can save a few dollars while wowing your attendees, all the better.
