Food Truck Business Plan, With a 12-Month Projection

A food truck business plan sets out the menu and where the truck will park, what a plate costs and sells for, the truck, the crew and the permits, and the first year month by month. A food truck's food is cheap, a quarter of the price or less; what makes or breaks it is the crew and the truck, which cost the same on a slow Tuesday as on a festival Saturday. So the plan treats the crew as a fixed cost, and the projection shows the hard part: the months before enough people know where to find you. In the example below, a taco truck in Albuquerque sells plates, burritos, drinks and catering bookings, loses money for four months, needs $13,200 of cash to get through them, and ends the year about $46,900 ahead on $223,500 of sales, after paying two people $16 an hour. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the rules, the projection, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: the menu, the spots, the events, the goals.
• Cost a plate: food, packaging, card fees. Food is about a quarter of the price.
• Count the crew as a fixed cost: they're paid whether 40 people come or 140.
• Book catering: a flat fee for an event, paid ahead, on days the truck would be quiet.
• Budget working cash for the slow first months; it's the line most plans leave short.
• A truck needs a commissary, health and fire inspections, and somewhere it's allowed to park.
• TaroStack keeps the truck and the commissary counted and every plate costed. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Sandia Taco Truck, a made-up food truck in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I use in these examples, writes:

Sandia Taco Truck serves tacos, burritos and aguas frescas from a truck working three office parks at lunch, two breweries in the evenings, and weekend events, with catering for weddings, offices and parties. We cook from a licensed commissary and plan four catering bookings a month by the end of the first year.

Part 2: what a plate costs

The taco plate's food is 24% of its price, the burrito's 25%. The regular crew isn't in these costs, because two people on the truck cost the same however many plates they sell; it's in the fixed costs below. How to read a food cost percentage is in what is a good food cost percentage, and how to cost a plate from the recipe in plate cost formula.

Part 3: customers and prices

At full speed the truck sells about 1,800 plates a month, some 80 a service day. A drink with half the plates adds $2.59 each for almost no extra work. A catering booking leaves $817.50, as much as about 95 plates, booked and paid ahead, which is why the plan aims at four a month.

Part 4: the rules

A food truck is a mobile food business. Health departments generally require it to work from a commissary, a licensed kitchen where it preps, fills water, empties waste water and cleans, and inspect the truck itself; a truck with a propane system and a hood is usually inspected by the fire department too. Cities and counties decide where a truck may park and sell, and events and breweries have their own requirements. The rules differ from one county to the next, so read the county's mobile food rules before buying a truck, because the truck has to be built to pass that inspection. This is general information, not legal advice.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $8,160 a month: the crew, two people at $16 an hour for about 9 hours a day, 22 days ($6,300), the commissary ($600), insurance ($250), permits and inspections ($100), propane and generator fuel ($250), truck maintenance ($200), location and event fees ($300), software and card fees ($60), and marketing ($100). Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach it by month 11:

The year's sales are $223,460 and the profit $46,942, on top of $16 an hour for both people on the truck, the owner included. Cash falls to −$13,227 by month 4, because the crew and truck cost the same in a slow month; the $14,000 of working cash in the budget is there for exactly that, and a slower start would need more. Weather and seasons move the months too; set the template's shares to your own year. How to work out the sales that cover the fixed costs is in break-even point for a food business.

Part 6: the startup budget

Get the template

Download the food truck business plan workbook. Four sheets: your menu and catering with price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed; the year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs, crew included; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

Thirty ingredients bought twice a week, prep at the commissary, a truck loaded each morning and unloaded each night, a catering order for 150 on Saturday, and tortillas that run out at 12:40. A sheet can't say what's on the truck, what to prep for Saturday, or what a plate costs now that beef has gone up.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps the truck and the commissary counted and every plate costed.

The truck and the commissary. The commissary and the truck are sites, with transfers between them, so what's loaded in the morning comes off the commissary's count and what comes back goes on again. Counting works on a phone with no signal, and the reorder list works in days of cover against each supplier's lead time.

Plates as recipes. Each menu item is a recipe, the salsas and fillings sub-recipes of their own, and units convert: beef bought by the case, used by the ounce. Recording the day's prep takes the ingredients off stock at what you paid, so the cost of a plate moves with this week's prices, and a price-creep report per supplier shows whose prices are rising.

And the catering. Catering orders are sales orders for their date that show whether the ingredients are on hand while you're still typing, and margins are reported by product and by customer.

Recipes, batches, counting and margins by product and customer are on every plan, from $49 a month; up to three sites, the commissary and the truck included, are on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

Is a food truck profitable?

It can be, after the slow start. In the example, a taco truck loses money for four months and ends the first year about $46,900 ahead on $223,500 of sales, with two people paid $16 an hour.

How much does it cost to start a food truck?

In the example, $78,700: a used outfitted truck at $55,000, equipment, first stock, permits, a wrap, and $14,000 of working cash for the slow months.

What should a food truck business plan include?

A description, what each menu item costs and sells for, the rules and permits, a month-by-month first year with the crew as a fixed cost, and a startup budget with enough working cash.

How many plates does a food truck need to sell?

In the example, about 80 a service day at full speed; covering $8,160 of monthly fixed costs takes about 940 plates a month at about $8.67 of contribution each, fewer once drinks and catering are counted.