you are listening to the food truck
Empire podcast where we talk about great
food being trucks
and how to launch a profitable food
truck business here's your host yeah
welcome to 2014 food truck Empire is
back and coming at you with more
brand-new episodes today we've got a
super cool interview with epic ganz
who's gonna be sharing how to take a
menu item from your food truck and
transform that into a wholesale product
that can be sold in grocery stores or
farmers markets not only can this create
a new revenue stream for your business
but create a more consistent source of
income for your business as well best of
all creating your own product might be
easier than you think especially if you
already own a food truck or restaurant
but first we got to get into some news
brought to you by our awesome sponsor
food start dot-com well plus effect
please we've got a new i-20 from smug
former ice cream truck operator future
ice cream truck operator I listen to
your podcast
I bought a prepackaged ice cream truck a
couple months ago we'll be running in in
Colorado like I did ten years ago
working on buying a hot dog cart - the
only problem I had with the podcast is
that it seems almost all the guests you
have on either have had a significant
cash flow or has friends or relatives
helping them out I'm starting from zero
cash have been driving a truck since
June over the road at with hardly any
time off still having to drive 4000
miles a week just so I can get the truck
Road morally worthier I gave up my
apartment and put everything in storage
I would like to hear from a guest who
actually has to struggle and work for
their truck and not haven't hand it to
him well first of all thank you for
taking the time to post this SmugMug I
really appreciate it and it sounds like
you have definitely sacrificed a lot to
take control of your life and get your
food truck up and running and I know
there are a lot of food truck owners on
the same boat as you and I just want to
take a moment to talk about that because
I think it raises a really good point I
feature a lot of people that are talking
about the positive aspects of operating
a business but there are also downsides
and struggles to starting your own food
truck so all definitely taking I'm
definitely taking your advice to heart
and I appreciate your comment before the
new year I went into the think tank and
really took a week to just figure out
some ways that I could make this podcast
more interesting and more engaging to
the listeners and one thing specifically
that I'd like to do is get more folks
involved in this podcast so that you're
not just hearing me Giada on you know do
the intro by myself and then listen to
an interview afterwards so here's what I
came up with I've added a voicemail
number that you can use to dial in to
give your feedback about the show give a
tip about what you're doing to operate
your business whatever you want to do
the number will take you straight to
voicemail and if you mess up when you're
trying to leave the voicemail message no
big deal just call back in and retry
later I think this will be a really cool
way to get more people involved in the
show and also get more voices played on
this podcast and when you do call in
make sure that you leave
your food truck and even the website
that you represent now if you want to
call in the number is two zero six three
zero nine nine three one zero that's two
zero six three zero nine nine three one
zero and I'm gonna post that number up
in the show notes as well so you can
call in if you've got something to say
I'd love to hear from you the second
thing that I want to get is photos of
you know you listening to the podcast
whether you're in a truck at home if
you're listening to your iPad or or just
cooking on the truck I'm super
interested in hearing how you're
listening to the show and again if you
just snap a real quick picture of
yourself on the earbuds and listening to
the show I'll make sure and feature you
on the show - I think that'd be a really
cool way to hear all the different
places and locations that people are
listening to this show so that's just a
couple things I've got planned for 2014
I'm really pumped up about it but with
that being said let's dive straight into
our main course with Stephanie Gans
okay we've got Stephanie Gans on the
phone with us today I found out about
Stephanie from trolling the wrong
conference list of speakers and reached
out to her
thankfully she was kind enough to
respond and I thought she had some
really interesting topics that she
discussed I know she's an expert in
crowdfunding and setting food prices and
basically I guess I define you as a food
truck consultants but I'll let you I'll
let you correct me if that's not right
but Stephanie one before we get into
that main interview questions why don't
you just tell us a little bit about
yourself
add some color to your background and
tell us just how you got involved with
the food truck industry in the first
place sure I absolutely well thank you
for reaching out I'm excited to chat
with you yeah I started out cooking in a
fine dining setting when I was an
undergraduate at William and Mary and
decided that I actually wanted to start
culinary school when I graduated so I
moved to Charlotte North Carolina and
did that
and when I finished culinary school I
worked in restaurants for probably about
seven years before I eventually came to
Richmond Virginia which is where I live
now and I cooked at one last restaurant
here in Richmond and then I which worked
for a non-profit where I helped women
start food based businesses I mean the
nonprofit I worked for was a Women's
Business Center it was grant funded and
a lot of the programs were specifically
designed for low-income minorities
people who didn't have access to
traditional forms of starting businesses
maybe access to capital or education
pieces that they needed regarding
business planning and one-on-one
coaching and things like that so that's
what the nonprofit was there for and
they realized that they had a lot of
clients basically one out of every three
phone calls was someone who wanted to
start a food based business and it such
an easy point of access for a lot of
people because people feel confident
with their own recipes and they want to
share that with people and they want to
build a business around it so that's
exactly what we did and we had a shared
commercial space that we operated for a
little bit of time where people could
sort of launch their businesses a little
bit and kind of get into a couple of
farmers markets maybe a specialty shop
or start catering whatever the case may
be and that was great and that is where
I met Victoria Jurij and she had the
idea to start a business based around a
Neapolitan style pizza dough and she
would have these great pizza parties at
her house and everyone would come and
bring their favorite toppings and it was
just this great communal kind of
experience where she would make the
dough everybody would you know dress it
up however they wanted and then they
would fire it no wood-fired oven in her
backyard and so she roped me in with all
that awesomeness and
when we started pizza tonight and that
was about three years ago and we've
grown from Jeff selling our products
wholesale to actually having a mobile
wood-fired oven which is sort of what
got me into the mobile food world and I
had worked with a couple of clients who
were interested in starting food carts
and food trucks prior to Victoria but
once I came on board as the first higher
piece of tonight I actually got the real
world experience of you know going
through the process of getting the
business license and the type of license
and you know figuring out the taxes and
things like that so I really got the
sort of ground experience I call it sort
of my master's program because I really
got that like day in and day out making
pizza dough making pizzas and having to
you know set up catering jobs and things
like that and now in our third year
we're hooking up a year in advance for
weddings and things like that so it's
been really interesting to watch sort of
the changes from you know when we first
started selling pizzas at farmers
markets to now there are food courts at
you know our local breweries and you
know hundreds of people come out over
the course of you know the season and
get to experience our food and all the
other food trucks and food carts in
Richmond and it's really awesome to
watch I guess I look at a lot of
consultants they've got you know a lot
of knowledge but maybe they haven't
actually helped launch a business of any
type but it sounds like you've
definitely gone through the process of
building a business and starting a whole
sale pizza business and getting your
hands dirty so speaking with the
marketing and applying the information
that you've learned over time yeah
absolutely it has really sort of
strengthened the coaching that I've been
able to do for people and just giving me
a different perspective and it's really
great to always keep learning like the
for example the crowdfunding piece you
know that was in our second year of
business when we decided that we wanted
to run a Kickstarter campaign and try to
buy some equipment for the
and so you know we immersed ourselves in
that process and said that allowed me to
add that to something that I feel you
know qualified to talk about and have
persons help other people with their own
crowdfunding applications and really
been able to sort of use that experience
to help them so it's been really great
for that part of what I do well that's
that's definitely an up-and-coming me
crowdfunding strategist especially I
think that's going to only get bigger
and bigger over the next few years and
get more I don't know more niche
specific I think I think you're gonna
not just see Kickstarter but a lot more
you know this is the crowdfunding site
for photography you know and and I think
we're already seeing that very awesome
very awesome explanation so obviously I
know you you're already familiar with
the mobile food industry and you provide
a lot of regular trainings that helped
food truck owners secure from funding
through crowdfunding platforms and I
know you do you've done work in the past
with setting food prices helping you
know new owners to determine what they
should set their prices that said they
ensure a profit over time but today
we're planning to lock in on a topic
that you recommended and I thought was
really really cool which is creating a
wholesale product for your menu and by
creating a wholesale product I mean I'm
assuming that you mean that creating a
food product that you can sell in like a
store or or a local grocery store would
that be accurate absolutely yeah that
that is what I'm talking about
very cool so something like that putting
up you know in your experience you have
put it sounds like a pizza tonight you
started businesses sold the wholesale
pizza into stores but this seems like
something to me at Aaron you know
obviously I've never done anything like
this before
but it just seems like something to me
like a very intimidating project to
embark on so can this even work with an
average food truck and obvious
you've got a really good example with
pizza tonight both why don't you just
tell us about that a little bit sure
yeah I think that it's a natural fit
because you know when you're running or
food trucks or if you depart you have
daily productions that you're
responsible for so you know that you're
producing at a certain amount regardless
and you've already gone through an
inspection process of some kind it's
usually a City Health Department
inspection and what that means is that
you're already operating above board
you're doing things the way that the
regulatory bodies who are the people
deciding whether or not you can sell
things are typically going to respect so
for our example if the Health Department
has inspected us and then the Department
of Agriculture inspects us they sort of
see that the other is is involved and
they have a little bit more confidence
in just our ability to do a good job and
I think that that makes the inspection
process which is in my mind the most
intimidating part of the process for
most entrepreneurs it makes it a little
bit less intimidating you have to have
your kitchen space regardless of whether
or not you can set up your mobile food
business whether it's a food truck or
getting cancelled because of rain or a
catering job falling through you know if
you're not hitting certain you know
monetary goals then you can't pay your
bills you can't keep the lights on
having a wholesale side to your business
can allow you to sort of regulate
through you know weather or just slower
periods in terms of you know catering
jobs and things like that so it's a good
way to maintain sort of even numbers
across the board if you can secure some
wholesale accounts that are capable of
working with you and I think that's
something that becomes a sort of another
piece of the puzzle which is that you
have to do your deliveries and you have
to you know uphold your responsibilities
to your retailers then you also have to
fulfil your obligations as a mode
food business so you just have to make
sure that you have the staff and the
resources to manage those yeah it's all
a no I love that and I love the point
that you make about this is a really
good way to get more consistent earnings
for your business because I know that
especially you know I live in the
Midwest so the the weather fluctuates a
lot out here and I know that just
weather and you know having rain we some
summers will have a lot of rain some
summers will be really dry and that'll
be perfect the whole time but from what
I understand the average food truck
owners income can fluctuate