Me too! Me, too! The NY Food Truck Craze

Nice one. 6th Ave at W 46th Street.

Not so nice. 6th Ave at W 26th Street.

Nice one again. 7th Ave at 26th Street.

First there was one. Now there are dozens. It's impossible to count them all, since they are always on the move, but they are everywhere. Walk the streets of Manhattan on any given day for a few blocks, and chances are you spot at least two or three of them - Food Trucks.

What started out as a fresh, and brilliant business idea of a very few, has turned into a regular staple of New York routine. It shows how easy a great idea can be copied, and if you are number one, and the concept works and takes off, there will soon be a bunch of copycats riding your tail.

Patenting or protecting the concept of selling food out of a movable truck apparently is impossible. Everyone can do it. You either have to be very different (kind of goods your are selling), or have a beautifully designed food truck, or you simply apply a unique strategy to build a loyal following. Some have done it via social media engagement, by tweeting or posting their times and locations to their fans.

The problem with the business however is that it is difficult to scale. Getting a fleet of five, ten trucks off the ground is a huge investments, and margins are limited - there are only so many cupcakes you can bake & sell in a day. By the time you get your second and third truck rolling, you'll most likely have a handful of competitors selling similar baked goods / foods on the streets of New York.

I wonder though if Magnolia Bakery should ride the trend while it's hot. Their store expansion on Fifth Avenue was highly successful - the last time I walked by the line was around the block, and a security guard was limiting the number of customers allowed into the store. I can see Magnolia aficionados jumping on the twitter feed, and happily running out of their office tower to pick up their vanilla cupcake.

A second problem I can foresee in the not so distant future is the environmental aspect once it's been put on the public radar. How much of a carbon footprint does each cupcake / coffee / falafel carry, if its home is constantly on the road, every day, adding to the congestion of New York City streets? Multiply the number of food trucks by the average carbon monoxide emission of a vehicle of that size, and I'm sure we will have a public discussion going.