Vegan Food Truck Business Podcast

Research & Insights from The Food Truck Scholar - Ariel Smith, PhD (Ep. 10)

• Heather Zeitzwolfe • Season 1 • Episode 10

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In this episode of the Vegan Food Truck Business Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Ariel Smith, known as "The Food Truck Scholar" and a university professor teaching entrepreneurship. Dr. Smith shares invaluable insights on running a successful food truck business, from menu pricing strategies to cash management and operations scaling.

Episode Highlights:

  • Understanding business model adaptation and flexibility
  • Strategic approaches to hiring and managing staff
  • Tips for effective menu pricing and food cost management
  • Best practices for cash handling and payment processing
  • The importance of due diligence in business decision-making

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Heather (2):

Hey, this is Heather Zeitzwolfe and you are listening to the Vegan Food Truck Business podcast. today's guest is Ariel Smith. She is known as the Food Truck Scholar. I met her years ago at a podcast convention, and I've been following her ever since, and when I started this podcast, she was one of the very first people I contacted to be on the show. It took a little while, but here is my interview with Ariel.

Heather:

All right. Ariel Smith, the Food Truck Scholar. Oh my God. are you the only food truck scholar in the United States or is there somebody else.

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

there are people who research mobile food vending, but to my knowledge, I'm the only person that specifically worked on black food truck owners,

Heather:

oh, there we go. Ariel, you've had a podcast You have a PhD, what did you have to do to become a food truck scholar?

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

my PhD is in American studies from Purdue University. I started my program in 2017, graduated in 2022, before, during, and after Covid era. I came to Purdue to study something entirely different.

Heather:

Really?

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

I came to study, like higher education and specifically I was curious about the ways in which African Americans, get entrepreneurship education. Because a a lot of times the business case studies, that you get from Harvard or anywhere else, they don't include us. they're not using case studies of black-owned businesses. That's something they're just starting to do within the Covid era. Where do we learn to become entrepreneurs?'cause always the gold standard is, zuckerberg or Gates or Musk or all these other people, but they don't look like me. where are other people who look like me learning to become entrepreneurs? That's what I was studying then one day I was on Instagram and I saw a new food truck at the time launching in Birmingham and I said, now wait a minute. I'm from Birmingham, Alabama, After I left, I felt real disrespected. Real, real disrespected. 20 16, 20 17, 20 18 were some golden years for Birmingham in terms of more and more food trucks are cranking out. Meanwhile, I'm in West Lafayette, Indiana and we couldn't find one black owned restaurant there. The area is like less than 3% black. it was a culture shock from what I had experienced. I just started trying to understand why are we having more and more food trucks in Birmingham? when I was doing a literary search, there was research about immigrant food trucks. research about Mexican American food trucks. research even about white American food trucks. There was nothing about black Americans in the food truck industry. it just so happened that following week I needed to write my seminar paper. my professor had checked in on us because we were all first year PhD students and said, how's those seminar papers coming? And there was all blank faces. he said, I get it. It's your first, course in the PhD program, it's your first paper. You think whatever you write has to be your dissertation. It doesn't just write me a 10 page paper about a question that's on your mind right now. And the question on my mind is what's happening with the black food trucks in Birmingham? I was like I know Birmingham's gentrifying. Does it have anything to do with that? I'm trying to figure it out. And I got an A on the paper and I said, let me find out I can eat my way to a PhD. Because they started being real serious. He was like, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? I was like, okay, these people are interested. Like I just knew they was gonna shoot down this idea. But actually they embraced it and got me to think more critically about it. And they got me to question, well, why do food trucks matter at all? And specifically, why do black food trucks matter? What is the criticality of them to our ecosystem, to black communities and to society at large? And so that became my entire dissertation.

Heather:

Very cool. And your doctorate you got to eat all these different foods. Did you go into food trucks? Were you talking to food truck owners? how did you get your data for this?

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

I did everything but own a food truck, I started interviewing food truck owners, and that's how the Food Truck Scholar came to be I wanted my work not to just sit in the academy. At best, maybe four people are going to read my dissertation. What does that actually do for the overall people? I wanted to create something that. All the people that I've collected all this data from, they could see it. They could be like, okay. She heard me and their message got out I started interviewing food truck owners. trying to find ways to give back so it wasn't always extraction. I would go to. Festivals, whether they were big or small. I went to the world largest food truck rally that had over 200 food trucks represented. I spent three days walking through it passing out little cards, introducing myself, asking can I take photo of the truck and giving them to them for free to post social media. I ended up hopping onto food trucks as they had lines wrapped around. I'm watching what is happening and I could see when the food trucks were cranking the food out and when they were slow and start asking them, so what's going on and why is it like this and why is it like that? I started talking to food truck manufacturers, I wanted to know, who makes the food trucks? I talked to everybody who sells the chassis. I know the people who do custom builds. Who own food truck parks and what are the logistics around that? people that do commercial tires. I talked to Goodyear to understand what does commercial tires look like? talked to different spaces because I I'm not a food truck owner, and there are some experiences I would never have because I'm not a food truck owner. But one thing about research, if you're doing it, with intention and with care, you find your ways to immerse yourself as much as possible.

Heather:

you've got some insider connections there. sounds like you were able to access everything, have you seen any major shift in food trucks carts, popups, that sort of thing.

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

I'm seeing a lot of people get out of the food truck industry.

Heather:

And why is that, do you think? Is that because of the economy? what are you seeing

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

it's a mixture of things. some of the very first people I interviewed, went back to being, restaurant chefs. Some of them were classically trained chefs. They started the food truck. They rocked with the food truck for a while, and then they decide, This is way too much wear and tear on my body I miss having time with my family. I miss having more set hours. With other people, it was like their dream to have a restaurant. So now they've worked and they've gotten that restaurant. For some people it is just been dealing with ordinances in their cities.'cause not all cities fully understand. how to support the mobile food industry. my hometown of Birmingham in 2013, they had passed bills, this mobile vending. They treated it like ice cream trucks because they really didn't understand it. And Philadelphia in 2020 when the pandemic hit there were so many different food trucks that if they didn't have a brick and mortar, they closed because of the permitting. It was really terrible. there's a multitude of different reasons why. For some it's wear and tear. For other people, it's no longer profitable for them. then others, it's like a step.

Heather:

it can be a great stepping stone. It could also be an offshoot you hit on the thing about the permits how cities treat, food truck owners. it's quite difficult. certain cities are definitely more friendly when it comes to this and others make it almost impossible. And I think a lot of it is old, things on the books that haven't come up with the times as far as food trucks go. what are some the cities that you see are more food truck friendly versus other cities?

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

this question is interesting because what's food truck friendly in terms of, you see a lot of food trucks versus what's food truck friendly in terms of policy? there've been some policy changes since I last looked at them. as opposed to 2018, there was this Food Trade Nation report put out, by the federal government in conjunction with a nonprofit entity. They researched 20 different cities and saw places like Portland, la, Miami, some of the places you would expect to be listed being friendly with food trucks. the question then becomes, we see this back and forth I remember during the pandemic, the state of Florida had passed something that said, no matter where you are in the state, if you have a food truck permit, it's gonna be honored across the state. by the time individual counties got a hold of that, GONE right. Birmingham is a food truck city. However, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done to help the process of starting a food truck, getting all your proper permits and licensing in place so that you're fully compliant, that space is still murky. LA historically is known for having the strictest, street vending laws. We can go all the way back to 1921 on that, but still very much a food truck friendly space. I feel like it's always a difficult question to answer. Because people see an area and say, oh, it's so food truck friendly. cause there's many of them, but we don't know how many hurdles they had to jump to get through that. And we don't know what loopholes they may have found. For example, You may wanna operate in Forsyth County, but Forsyth County is incredibly difficult. maybe you're in the county next door in Davidson County because they're a little bit more lenient. when you get ready to come up to Forsyth, to go to a Wake Forest or something you do a day pass or temporary permit because that's easier you just have to dig a little bit deeper to understand what's really happening in each of these places. I would always advise to talk to the people that are local Because if I give answer now, I don't know what policy changes they may have made recently.

Heather:

I just interviewed a woman who's lives in a city where they don't really have food trucks. she was, able to shape. The policies they're making in that city for food trucks. have you seen people being able to impact, the policy making?

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

Oh, yeah. I actually interview the mayor of Duney, Virginia, who was a food truck owner. of course he couldn't vote on the bill, but he was instrumental in bringing it forward. I think about situations like that. like in Peoria, Illinois, the very first food truck I ever interviewed on YouTube. They were advocating for food truck legislation in Peoria. I've been fortunate to talk to people who have those stories. they're trying to keep the door open, not just for themselves, but for others. food truck advocacy can also be a murky space

Heather:

these are all things that people have to consider when they're dreaming about having a food truck. People, see'em in movies or visit cities and there's food trucks everywhere, and they're not thinking about parking permits or, any other kind of permits they might have to have and all the costs associated with it. there's a lot of moving parts, with having a food truck. they need to do their homework in the city or wherever they are going to be located and make sure that, is it worth the headache? Like, Do they really wanna do this? As a CPA I see people starting businesses and they invest in things they don't need to invest in right away Are there things you see people making that mistake of jumping in too quickly and spending money on things that they don't need to?

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

Yeah, first of all, do you need the food truck? I know of some places that they immediately think that, oh, I have to have the food truck to start. I've talked to quite a number of people that actually got started at Farmer's Market. They had, tents and tables and that's how they started testing if they had a product that was in demand we call that proof of market, right? Yeah, you really wanna know do you have a following for this? Let's do it at the farmer's market where the fee, the barriers to entry, are low, Whereas if you're rushing to get into a truck you're probably financing it, now you gotta pay for the note. Now you gotta pay for the gas, generator. propane. Now you gotta worry about tires. Anything that can go wrong on your car personally, if you're driving a food truck, that can also happen. Maybe not as bad if you have a trailer and you can haul it. But wouldn't it be a little bit less stressful if you can test the market where there's lower cost? There's not a whole lot of pressure on you to make a certain amount of money, then you can go into the truck. Do you need to immediately start out with a truck, even though that's your goal,

Heather:

It could be a reality check when people have dreams about starting a business, they're not thinking in, real terms of all the work associated with it. a farmer's market, you gotta stand there all day, but a food truck, you're in a hot truck for hours you've gotta prep, you gotta park, there's more hours involved.

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

underscore hot because I've been on a food truck that was 140 degrees,

Heather:

my God.

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

People never realize how hot it can get. And that's mild for some states if you're in a place like Texas or the deep south during the summer you're sweating, getting dehydrated very quickly. that's why they say, be careful about painting your food truck black, because that's making it even hotter during summer months. I know food truck owners that have had to do IV injections just to make sure they don't pass out. it can be very serious there's so many things that you don't think about with the food truck. you wouldn't know if you didn't have someone to tell you. So whether they're listening to the Food Trust Scholar podcast, whether they're listening to your podcast, Heather, or they're talking to some people in their area and saying, Hey, can I volunteer for you for a certain amount of time? And just learn to see, okay, wow, didn't see that coming. Didn't know if I don't have diamond, plated flooring, I'm gonna slip and fall in my truck No one would know unless you spent time on a food truck or around people who have. you could be losing money because no one told you.

Heather:

I didn't know about that flooring. Okay. everybody loves marketing. That's the sexiest part of starting a business. wrapping a food truck can be very costly but it can look great. are there some recommendations that you have to keep some of these early marketing costs down, and make you stand out in the community? I

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

know people love the wrap, I'm not going to come heavy on that. The biggest question I'm going to say is the branding consistent? Because sometimes it's not,

Heather:

describe what you mean. Is that like social media, the menu, the truck,

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

They need to match. it doesn't need too much going on. If you're noticing that everybody in your city tends to gravitate towards red, black, and white, maybe you be the food truck that is a different color. I've noticed that in certain cities. in terms of your logos, making them very clean and easy to read. I've even seen people avoid wrapping altogether and had a graffiti artist do their truck and that was different.

Heather:

Ooh, that sounds actually really cool.

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

Yeah. So food truck owner I interviewed, actually she has a food bus, chef, TLC in Indianapolis, Indiana. she got a old school bus. they have less miles. she got a graffiti artist out of New York come down and do her bus.

Heather:

Oh my God, that sounds very cool. here in Portland, we have a double decker bus, like one of those British style ones, and it just sits permanently. it's a coffee shop that is very busy You have to wait at the door to get in just like you would on a bus. They built an experience around it. all these things, planning it out. I talked to someone recently she spent a lot of time on her business plan because she was looking for a grant building a business plan is something that not everybody wants to do. They don't necessarily have to do. But it's good to go through the steps and think about strategically all these things. What is your target market? What is the competition doing? How much money do you need? What is your financial projections think through all the different elements of the business. if you are gonna be the one, in the truck all the time, can you somehow scale this in the future to have somebody else

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

the business plan that's for funders, for your loans, your investors But planning the trajection of your food truck I encourage a business model canvas'cause it's a one page

Heather:

yeah. I love that.

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

a lot of people, because they put so much time into that business plan, even when their business is starting to deviate from that and go in a different direction, which could be for the best. They may not adapt to it because it's not what they wrote Whereas if they do the business model canvas, it can actually help them adapt, more quickly and easily.

Heather:

I love that. I've got, the books this is a great way, to figure out your business all in one model. I'm glad that you said that because I love this as well. you could put on a whiteboard and use sticky notes it's just a great way to, visually see what you want your business to be, and you can always change it. Where do you see that threshold of when people are able to take on new hires,

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

That depends on the person. how much money do you have to bring on another person? people may not have it. Sometimes it's a family member. I've seen a lot of food trucks. become a family venture where everybody is putting in to help them take off. if you don't have that, it may take a little bit longer because there's a blessing of having family and friends helping you, but then it could also go left. that's a little bit of a challenge. comes down to the money that they're making back. that's gonna tie into, are you pricing your food appropriately? Are you dealing with waste both product and time because that's costing you money. sometimes you need spreadsheets to forecast your inventory, standardize measurements, get your cost structure down, get your pricing structure down, putting yourself in those spaces where you can grow and scale to bring on someone and pay them this hourly rate,

Heather:

what is an area that you've seen people make mistakes when it comes to their menu and pricing? food costs keep going up, changing your menu, pricing. how often should they be doing that?

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

Unfortunately, right now you probably have to do that way more regularly than we ever had to. Because with the current lay of the land, we don't know how terifs or any of that stuff is gonna impact, cost. And availability.

Heather:

What are some of the things that you've seen that has worked for people to keep them, profitable

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

people's menus may change if they can't get certain ingredients anymore. with my book, I actually talk about some of the things to think about with your menu creation. It's available on Amazon that functions like a workbook.

Heather:

Say the name of it

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

Before you launch a food truck. There you go.

Heather:

do you have recommendations of tools they could use? There's spreadsheets, there's software, to figure out your pricing for your menu

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

you can use chat GPT. There's worksheets for restaurateurs and different restaurant books and hospitality classes can also help I talk to friends who are trained chefs and they now teach. so a lot of those textbooks, all that stuff, it helps. Because let's say that you get, some vegetables, And you know they cost a certain amount per pound. Some of them spoil before you get to them, Or not The right size that's per yield. Mm-hmm. Because you're gonna expect to waste some. what you actually paid for per pound, that's not the price per yield It was a certain amount per pound or per ounce, but by the time you cook it down, you don't really get that. you have to account for that in your cost and pricing. A lot of people don't do that. If you're not then you're shortchanging yourself.'cause every little thing that is a part of your menu and not for example, labor Paying them$25 an hour or$15 an hour, that's not all of what it costs you. When you run payroll, there's taxes the price to run the payroll. Any insurance or benefits you pay them.

Heather:

Yeah, before we wrap up, if you had to name the five biggest challenges food truck owners, have when they're in the weeds. What would you say those are

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

funding. Hiring and retaining and developing employees,

Heather:

it's all about the compliance and labor. Those are the two big things you're talking about. And making sure that you have money management,

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

the bookkeeping is gonna be big and even simple things such as how do you handle cash? I did a workshop with Regions Bank about, cash handling tips and counterfeit money awareness. Recognize counterfeit money, but also you can be short in a drawer or accidentally give the wrong change all because you have poor cash handling techniques. making sure that when you're counting the cash, all of the dollar bills are faced a certain way group everything by fives, tens, whatever. that's important as well. And those are things you learn in retail or customer service. But if you're working with someone that's never had that experience and now they're on a food truck, they may need to learn that.

Heather:

I've encountered people that don't know how to add or give back change. a lot of places, they only will take credit card. They don't wanna have any cash on hand, because of robberies but cash you don't have to pay all the fees associated with it. cash is actually really good.

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

we're getting, incentivized at a lot of restaurants that if you pay in cash, you get this percent off.

Heather:

We have that here too. but to

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

your point, because a lot of people are cashless in digital, there is the challenge with payment processing systems and how much fees they take out and all of that stuff that can happen

Heather:

any last thoughts for someone who's either thinking about it or they are in the weeds and they're like, what did I get myself into?

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

Slow down and do research You can listen to me, you can listen to Heather, but if you're in a rush to do things and you're not doing your due diligence, you can be taken advantage of. unfortunately, I've seen that in more spaces than not. There are some things people charge thousands of dollars for you could actually do yourself if you took the time to read. And we're in a space now where a lot of people don't want read for themselves. They don't wanna said they want someone to come in and tell them exactly what to do, and I think that has its place, but it should not replace you as the business owner doing your due diligence to at least know, like when you're talking about taxes and whatnot, Heather, I may not be the best accounting person out there, but you gotta know the basics around managerial accounting to know if the bookkeeper is doing what they're supposed to do or not. The same thing is key with your business. So please take the time, do the due diligence, whether it is researching the food truck manufacturer, figuring out reviews on it, do your due diligence at every step. Really take the time to learn.

Heather:

Awesome. I love that. Ariel, you have a book. You had a podcast, and you're educating, the future. Tell us about what you're doing as a teacher.

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

currently I am an assistant teaching professor of entrepreneurship at Wake Forest University. I've been here in North Carolina since fall of 2023. I've been teaching classes around entrepreneurial marketing, so I chuckled when you asked me the marketing questions. Also taught a class I designed called Black Entrepreneurship in America. we look at the experiences of black entrepreneurs from Colonial America to present day. I'm teaching some new classes this fall to really get students thinking a more holistic perspective around entrepreneurship. And then as an entrepreneur myself, I've done a lot of other projects during and since the Food Truck Scholar now people just come to me to say, Hey, can I pick your brain about something? And usually it is a consultation. They really want my thoughts on their business. So I have something called idea therapy that people can come in, sit down in a very casual setting, we can just brainstorm together basically their thought partner, through whatever concept they want to do.

Heather:

is that through the university or something you offer on the side?

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

That's separate. I'm getting ready to launch a new updated website on that soon. So I'm very excited about that.

Heather:

if people wanna follow you on the internet, where do they find you?

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

You can find me, the Food Truck scholar. Instagram is still active. I'm still there. Dr. Ariel d Smith is also another Instagram you can follow me on. So both of those I can message and reach out to you. And I'm also very heavy on LinkedIn. follow Ariel d Smith, PhD, you can always engage with me there.

Heather:

Ariel, thank you so much for being on the show today and giving us your knowledge. you've really studied this stuff. You've got a doctorate in it, so how cool is that? thank you Ariel, and I appreciate you so much.

Ariel - Food Truck Scholar:

Thank you. I appreciate you having me on. It feels good to be on the other side of the mic.