Are you thinking of starting a food truck business? One of the most overlooked, but important, tools for success is to clean, repair and maintain your food truck or trailer. A dirty mobile kitchen or ignored food truck damage can create dangerous conditions for you, your team and your customers. Of course, regular food truck repairs, maintenance and cleaning can save you money in the long run.
Take a few minutes to consider how you will keep your food truck looking and running its best.
Keeping Your Food Truck Clean
We know this topic isn’t sexy, but it’s important to learn about if you’ve never worked in a commercial kitchen before. Like any commercial kitchen, a dirty food truck can spread food-borne illness to customer and staff. It also attracts bugs and rodents which not only makes for an awful work environment, but can lead to further food contamination and food poisoning.
First, make sure to familiarize yourself with your health department’s inspection regulations, Next, attend a training course like ServSafe. Finally, buy a food truck that is designed to make spilling in hard-to-reach areas impossible and sterilization easier. With a little planning and elbow grease you’ll be able to ensure safe conditions for you and your customers.
Daily Cleaning
This means a full disinfecting wipe down of all reachable surfaces inside your truck including scrubbing the floor. All dishes, pots, and pans will need to be sterilized fully either inside your food truck or at a commissary. This is especially important in ensuring that you adhere to all health and safety regulations. Any hygiene issues during a food truck inspection can lead to a fine, downgrade of health permit, or even closing your business doors. Plan on a deep clean once a month. This includes disinfecting all walls, scrubbing . and pulling out any slide in equipment to clean behind and underneath it. At this time, fridges must be cleared out and fully disinfected along with all other food storage cabinets and shelves.
Weekly Cleaning
Depending on the weather and road conditions, you should plan on a full exterior wash of your food truck or trailer weekly. Inside, make sure to get rid of any food that is expired, clean hood grease filters, and thoroughly empty and disinfect the interior of fridges including gasket seals. This is also the moment to detail the interior of cooking equipment like ovens ovens and fryers. If you don’t want to deep clean all your equipment in a single day, consider a rotating cleaning schedule where the oven is cleaned every Tuesday, fryers every Wednesday, etc.
Monthly Cleaning
Cleaning dust off of refrigerator compressor, emptying and adding a bleach solution to clean any fresh water tanks. You may also want to consider defrosting and disinfecting the interior of freezers. Also, while it’s not exactly cleaning, remember to do a generator oil change monthly to keep the most expensive equipment on your truck in working order.
Do you have to clean the food truck yourself?
If you don’t think you will have the energy or time to scrub your food truck at the end of the day and you’re working in Southern California, look for a food truck commissary that offers cleaning services. For a fee, you can pay a team of people to quickly and thoroughly clean your food truck as often as you need. If you aren’t required to park at a commissary or live outside of SoCal, ask other food truck owners for recommendations of people they trust.
Food Truck Repairs
While it’s tough to take time out of your busy schedule for maintenance, you should make sure that you truck is checked at least annually. Small fixes can quickly turn into costly, big repairs if they’re ignored. Staying on top of maintenance and repairs will save you a lot of money in the long run. A short list of maintenance and repairs you’ll want to
- Food Truck Vehicle Repair and Maintenance
- Kitchen Equipment Repair and Maintenance
- Generator Repair and Maintenance
- Wrap Repair and Maintenance
- Menu Repair and Maintenance
Are food truck repairs costing you too much?
The cost of repairing your truck is just the beginning. What about the hidden costs of canceled events, disappointed customers and lost marketing opportunities? Learn why a new Firefly food truck is actually cheaper than a used food truck.
Need food truck repairs in Los Angeles?
Working with a reliable custom food truck manufacturer who can help with food truck repairs is essential in making your business a success. Firefly is a once stop-shop for food truck manufacturing, repairs and wraps for food trucks and food trailers in Southern California. Contact Firefly today for a free quote on your food truck repair.
