Food Trucks Are Here to Stay

An innovative food trend that looks like it’s here for good.

What seems like a group of vagabonds clustering the streets, are actually bright spots in the urban food landscape. Not least due to the fact that their proprietors comprise a pool of mostly talented chefs – who could partner with supermarkets looking for new ways to appeal to shoppers with prepared foods.  

The Lempert Report has suggested this previously and now findings of the 2014 National Grocers Association-SupermarketGuru Consumer Survey Report support this idea. Data shows that one American in seven has gone to a food truck within the past month.  For them, a food truck trip is usually a casual social event.  Two-thirds of consumers who’ve gone to a food truck within the past month (66.3%) went with at least one other person.

And asides from the good food,  among respondents who go to food trucks, the reason they go is “fun”! An expectation of “tasty” food is reason #2.  Followed by: “easy way to try something new”. 

Customers of food trucks aren’t tired of them yet.  One out of four expect to buy the same amount of food from trucks in 2014 as they did in 2013; another 15.3% say they’ll buy more often than they did last year; just 2.7% predict less.

This research seems to indicate that food trucks are here to stay. So for supermarkets, linking up with a truck and a talented chef could be a win win for both parties.