The Great NCDSB Food Cart Challenge! Synopsis: The gourmet food truck craze has hit many cities in North America. Food carts/trucks have becomeso popular that there is even a show on Food TV called EAT ST. Somecities even have street food parks where gourmet food carts can congregate and sell their delicious food. But not St.Catharines /Niagara has no street food culture. In fact the Niagara Region Health Unit is trying to limit the few street food carts that are left (mostly fries and sausagecarts) and have not embraced this phenomenon like other major (and not so major) cities have. Many of these carts/trucks aren’t selling your typical hot dogs and fries, they are coming up with interesting foods for people to eat on the go. Thesechefs and entrepreneurs are also using the power of social media (i.e. tweeting their location for their followers) to build “buzz” surrounding their food truck. HOWEVER the foundation of their successis great tasting, inventive food that is handmade using local, seasonal ingredients…and a lot of passion!
Assignment: In your group (maximum of 4) you are to develop a food cart concept to show City Hall / Regional Health that this food phenomenon isn’t just a trend but something that adds character (and can bring media attention) to the city and fills a need for great tasting, interesting, diverse food that you don’t need to go to a restaurant for but is of restaurant quality (hint…do something you know and love). The food has to be able to be prepared in a food truck and be able to be eaten with your hands or one utensil (i.e. a spoon or fork). The concept has to be your own, do not copy something off the show…Iwill find out and you will fail. You do not need to come up with an entire menu but you do need to come up with TWOitems. Finally you will present
your concept to the class (and 3 judges) and provide a sample of the dishes that you’ve come up with.
Required Elements: 1. Menu items: You will need to come up with 2 dishes for your food truck that compliment each other. What you can not do is a standard French fry cart or simple hot dog stand. Be creative and put some passion in what you want to serve to your customers (hint…do something you know and love). 2. Comeup with a name: The name of your food cart/truck should be creative and catchy and possibly give customers a hint of what’s in store for them if they stop at your establishment.
3. Design your truck: The outside of the truck should be eye-catching and make people want to stop…sincethey haven’t tried the amazing food yet. Onceyou get them to the window it’s up to you to wow them with your food! 4. Figure out how to serve the food: Obviously you have to have the food figured out first but how you serve your food (type of container, impact on the environment and easeof eating your food from it) is very important. 5. Figure out how much to charge: I’ll help you a little with this one through a lesson on food costing. But pricing is very important in the food industry…charge too much and people may not buy it, charge too little and you won’t be in businessvery long. 6. Finally equipment: You will need to figure out all the equipment you’ll need to prep, cook and serve your dishes out of your food truck.
The Fine Print This project is DUE for presentation the third week of May, 2012 . If any of your group members are missing you will still present on the due date. Your type written work is
DUE on Monday May 14 th , 2012 and is to be emailed mr_gretzinger@me.com. You will be marked as a group on all aspects of your project (the 6 required elements above), should any part be missing you will lose marks accordingly. A rubric will be handed out shortly. Make sure that you present your written work in an appealing manner…aswith everything in food, presentation is everything!! You will email a package with all of your Marketing/Promotional material including: Your concept Your concept name Your menu items The standardized recipes to produce all the components of the recipe (if you have a sauce that goeswith your dish I want the recipe that you’ve developed for that sauce) The costing for everything that you are going to sell (this includes pricing on the packaging and serving vessel you will use plus I want the name of the supplier that you are going to use for the packaging) Any information that isn’t contained in this synopsis will be given out over the next week so that you can have all the information necessary to complete this project. For inspiration check out these sites: http://www.foodnetwork.ca/ontv/shows/eat-st/show.html?titleid=257482 http://www.facebook.com/EatSt
Also some episodeson Youtube.