Executive Summary
This is a for-profit, business plan to secure $30,000 in funding for the materials, marketing, and other overhead for a new food trailer. This will pay for 3 months of operational costs until the business is able to sustain itself.
The Mission
To prepare high quality, deeply nourishing, affordable, and appealing meals to our customers.
The Vision
Providing meals which would start with very simple grilled meat dishes, that are healing. Using local ingredients from farms that prioritize nutrition density and regenerative practices. Using a portion of our profits to continually diversify our menu.
Instead of moving around with the frequency of a food truck, this vision includes a few fixed locations. So that our trailer may only move from month to month. No more than twice a week.
Providing 2 meals a day, during hours that are accessible to many people.
Prices will be transparently set according to costs and a profitable margin.
Meals will be designed to be as affordable as possible.
A big part of the vision is to provide a service to those who don't have access to a kitchen to prepare their own nourishing foods. Whether living in a small apartment, homeless, or living in an rv.
Some meals may be more luxurious than others, but if possible, we would like to serve a cheap soup or stew once a day. Something you can fill up on for little money. If something genuinely cheap is not possible, perhaps we could start a fund.
As a business we are aiming to serve at least 200 unique customers a week, and a minimum profit of $600.
My Background
Orginally from South Carolina, I've lived in a few different places across the east coast. Spent about 3 years working in restaurants as a server, and enjoy work that allows me to meet new people.
After learning a bit about nutrition and the toxins we exist with in this world, it became very hard to watch vegetables be steamed in a microwave, in a plastic bag, before being served to customers as a $6 side.
There's a certain degree of trust we put in restaurants and our supply chain in general, that green beans are going to provide us with nutrition. We don't realize how much of an assumption that really is.
So for the past few years I've had a desire to provide some kind of service to make up for that lack of quality and that lack of accountability. While I haven't been able to save up any cash, I have continued to learn and educate myself.
Menu
Single dish meals. No gluten, no sugar, no toxic ingedients. Food must be actively healing to serve. Simply being "not poisonous" is too low of a standard.
3 items on the menu each day:
- Soup/Stew
- High Fiber Dish
- Carnivore Dish
- Kabobs & Casava Pita
- Daily Soup
- Hashbrown & Liver Sausage, Eggs Benedict
- Bunless Burger with seasonal ingredients
- Beef Stew, with slow cooked heart.
- Grainless Stir Fry
- Liver Pate with pickled veggies and veggie crackers
Locally made Kefir or Kombucha
Filtered/Distilled Water, self serve from cooler.
Sourcing
From local farms. Some ingredients may need to be purchased ahead of time and stocked in a freezer.
Will only source from farms which are transparent about their processes.
Will judge the product on the extent to which it was created in alignment with nature, its nutritional value, and its impact to the earth.
As the menu changes throughout the season we will likely need to renegotiate our sourcing with various farms. Some may fall in and out of business, some may change prices, and some may simply have a bad season.
Marketing
Will need to look outside for help. Would write open letters to every name, group, and organization in the alternative economy, who would be interested in spreading the word, or educating me on how to do so.
The Other Part of the Vision
The second part of this equation is the state. How many of these foods which I want to sell would be considered illegal, if sold by a licensed restaurant. Now, I have no interest in contracting with the state ever again, on their terms. But the question of how to navigate this, still remains. Perhaps the answer is a private membership of sorts. It would also be easy to do this on private properties. But if that private property is on that of a licensed brewery, does that make things more difficult?
There will certainly be challenges. But even if the costs are equal to that of running a licensed business, it will have been worth it. Because that money will have gone to better uses than funding the government.
Seasonality
The goal is to operate year round. While I may personally take time off, I would hire someone to take my place. In order to maintain this, the business will likely only be open 4 days of the week, especially in the beginning.
Obviously any food business that has consistent business, will have a huge surge during the summer months. So we should have a strategy for taking advantage of that extra income.
Cash Flow
To be determined.
best of luck to you. I love a food truck business and am curious what the licensing requirements are. Hopefully they are easy enough.
Thanks for the support! Well the licensing requirements are a pain, and basically make it too expensive to be feasible for most people. What I'm aiming for is some variation of a Private Membership Association, placing me outside of the jurisdiction of licensing. Even if court costs made it cost the same, it would be worth it to be free from Uncle Sam's overreach.
Cheers to a more interesting 2022!