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Talking With: Karl Boston and Ray Friedrich on the need for food truck consultants

Food truck industry veterans Karl Boston and Ray Friedrich saw the need for a consultancy to help new food truck owners, given the continuing interest in food truck operations. Food Truck Operator tapped their insights on the food truck market.

Karl Boston and Ray Friedrich assist new food truck operators with all aspects of the business.

September 30, 2019 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

The need for a team of experts that can build a food truck, and give advice on how to operate it, was evident to a pair of Detroit area food truck veterans, Ray Friedrich and Karl Boston.

Friedrich, an executive for one of the country's largest corporate dining companies, and Boston, a food truck owner turned food truck builder, are partners providing everything from food truck design to advice on menu planning and marketing to aspiring food truck owners.

The pair have found the demand for their knowledge is huge as more individuals and organizations want to launch food trucks. In the past year, they have built 25 food trucks and several more are in the planning stage. 

Friedrich, as a longtime corporate dining and refreshment service executive, partnered with food trucks for years. Prior to selling his own business, Canton, Michigan-based Sterling Services Inc. to Continental Services this year, Friedrich designed his own food truck, working with Boston.

Friedrich, who now has a full-time job working in business development for the company that bought his business, consults with food truck owners on design, workflow, point of sale, menu design, payment systems and inventory management systems. 

Boston operates The Food Truck Shop, a food truck building business in Canton, which he opened eight years ago after operating his own food truck. The company has seen double-digit growth every year and is planning to expand from its 4,500-square-foot building to a larger one and is also exploring acquiring a fabrication shop in Detroit. 

Consulting clients include big corporations, school systems, restaurants and foodservice providers that service corporate campuses. 

Friedrich and Boston currently have four clients who want electric vehicles. In addition to electric vehicles, they envision self-driving food trucks serving corporate campuses. 

Food Truck Operator recently spoke to Friedrich and Boston about their consulting business.

Food Truck Operator: Why did you decide to offer a consulting service for food trucks?

Friedrich: I think there's a lot of opportunity in this mobile space. Ways to make the food truck industry more efficient, that's what I like to do. That's work flow, that's menu planning, that's payment methods and all that stuff.

I think it's a pretty exciting time in the food truck world. Now we've got corporations who buy food trucks. We've got school systems who are buying food trucks. We have national foodservice companies that are looking to do food trucks as well for campuses. 

Detroit is in a very unique position from a food truck manufacturer standpoint. All of the food truck body companies and trailer companies are in the Midwest. We have access to that type of stuff. People that can bend metal, weld and fabricate are abundant here.

Boston: Morgan Olson is here in Sturgis, Michigan. Ford Motor Company is getting more involved because they do the chassis. And we're also looking at doing 100% electric trucks. There are companies that want that. That (an electric food truck) can go to a convention center and not have to worry about the fire marshal or anything like that.

Food Truck Operator: How did you become involved with electric vehicles?

Boston: I'm getting more calls out of California. That's why we got into the electric vehicles. Before they (the electric engine manufacturers) were getting 100 miles on a charge. Now they're getting 200 miles on a charge. There are about four or five companies out there that are doing this now. It's all going to be (electric) step vans and commercial vehicles.

Food Truck Operator: Do you foresee self-driving food trucks?

Friedrich: Dominos is already delivering with a completely autonomous vehicle. We have connections with some of the automotive companies to go completely autonomous on some of these vehicles on a campus setting where you just have complete automation. You can run these things with the locker system. You build your food out at a commissary, and the truck drives off and goes to a building all on its own. A locker system on a truck that's autonomous. We are having conversations with a major manufacturer potentially to accomplish this.

Not only is it a "cool" factor, but it also solves a problem for feeding people in these buildings that don't have enough population (to justify a traditional cafeteria). 

Food Truck Operator: What other innovations are you working on?

Friedrich: We've had a large client look to build a completely modular kitchen out of a (shipping) container, which is not a new idea. What is new about it is in this industry sector, you could plop down what is essentially a full-blown kitchen with a little serving area and you could drop it off for a week or for six months. You could put it in a factory. You could put it in a parking lot.

Food Truck Operator: Why are more corporate foodservice providers getting into food trucks?

Friedrich: Running a food truck when you've (already) got a commissary kitchen is very easy to do. Usually employees are on your staff when you need them. When you've got a standalone food truck (on the other hand), you've got to concern yourself with hiring and maintaining regular labor. Whether the food truck is going or not, you've got fixed costs when you're trying to run a food truck on its own.

Food Truck Operator:What is the biggest mistake food truck newbies make?

Friedrich: They want to have too many things on the menu. If it takes too long to produce the food or your menu's too complicated, you're not going to do well. Long lines will kill you. Just because the food's good doesn't mean you're successful. It's got to be fast, it's got to be efficient. You can't be everything to everybody. You want to give somebody a good hot product, but when you order it, and then they've got to step back and wait 10 minutes for it, that's a problem.

Boston: Some people say they want to change the menu every day. I say 'listen, you're wasting food. You've got nowhere to put it. What are you going to do with food you have left over from yesterday if you're changing your menu every day?' Throw in a special in there for the week, but make sure you reuse that (product) in something else down the road.

Food Truck Operator: What type of food is becoming popular?

Boston: Drink trailers, ice cream trailers, dessert trailers are becoming more and more popular. The drink side is high profit margin.

Friedrich: We built a toaster truck — different things on toast. They partnered with a coffee guy. They just did their second truck which is (for) edible cookie dough. That's all they do on the truck. The profit margins are phenomenal. The speed of service is just terrific. You can't help but make money doing something like that.

About Elliot Maras

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Elliot Maras is the editor of Kiosk Marketplace and Vending Times. He brings three decades covering unattended retail and commercial foodservice.