Public Health Department

• Health certificate & hygiene instruction
• Food hygiene training in accordance with EU Regulation (EC) No. 852/2004
• Instruction in accordance with Section 43 of the German Infection Protection Act (IfSG)

Public Order Office & Trade Office

• Restaurant licence / serving licence if required
• Immission-control permit
• Itinerant trade permit

Federal Office of Justice (personalausweis.de)

• Certificate of conduct

IHK – Chamber of Industry and Commerce

• Certificate of instruction for the hospitality trade

BGN – German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the Foodstuffs and Catering Industry

• Registration with the relevant employers’ liability insurance association

A location is a good fit for your food truck when your target audience spends time there. Do you offer casual street food or fine dining? Do you have a breakfast or lunch offer aimed at business customers, or do you sell sweet dishes to a younger audience?

The following locations are generally well frequented:

• Markets (e.g. street-food markets, weekly markets and farmers’ markets, which are also a great way to build new relationships with local producers)
• Business districts
• Shopping centres (note that large malls usually have a food court)
• Bars, clubs, concert venues
• Train and bus stations
• Schools and universities
• Petrol stations
• Events and festivals
• Public places such as local parks and museums

Always keep an eye out for new and profitable food truck locations. Find out where other successful food truck operators like to park. The longer you are in the food truck business and the better connected you become with other business owners and event organisers, the easier it will be to find profitable locations near you.

The equipment options for mobile kitchens such as food trucks or food trailers are as diverse as the world’s culinary offerings. Classic examples include burger trucks, pizza trucks, ice-cream vans and, for example, fish & chips. These are all food concepts that can taste fantastic and work very well when done properly. But we also receive more unusual food truck concepts such as Korean hot dogs, Japanese soft serve, pizza cones, farm-to-pot concepts, Maultaschen variations, lobster rolls or Breton galettes.

We always plan the mobile kitchen around the customer’s individual street-food concept. This ensures that all necessary commercial kitchen equipment is positioned in the right place inside the food trailer. After all, a functional kitchen layout is one of the basic requirements for a successful food truck business, even in mobile outdoor catering.

The advantages of a food trailer over a food truck are clear!

First and foremost, the lower purchase costs are worth mentioning – provided you already own a suitable towing vehicle for a food trailer. The cost of buying a food trailer is usually significantly lower than buying a food truck, where you are also purchasing a motorised vehicle.

That brings us to the second major advantage of a food trailer: there is no engine. Anyone who owns a car knows that vehicles can sometimes fail. Sometimes it is only a minor repair, but especially with older vehicles, problems can quickly become more serious and may even result in an economic total loss. That risk is always present with a food truck. With a food trailer, on the other hand, there is relatively little that can break apart from the commercial kitchen equipment. A food trailer still needs regular maintenance and care, of course, but major unexpected issues are generally much less common.