Your Business: Food trucks - Peter Stewart, The Roaming Dive

Peter Stewart pictured inside his food truck The Roaming Dive.

Peter Stewart is the founder of food truck business The Roaming Dive.

When and why did you come to set up a food truck business?

After a stint in San Diego in 2011 I fell in love with the culture of dives, barbecue joints and street vendors. When I came back to New Zealand later that year I wanted to take that experience and add a Kiwi influence. I was inspired, but also under no illusion about the amount work that would go into setting up a food truck. I just went for it!

Can you tell me a bit about the truck itself?

The truck was originally a laundry runner for New Zealand Towel Service. When I bought it, it had been retrofitted as a campervan. I had to stick within a tight budget when I converted it, so I managed all the build and bought my equipment from second-hand outlets.

Because of that the build itself took a few months more than planned, but knowing the truck so well has been really helpful when I've had to deal with malfunctions or components that needed a quick fix. On the flip side, though, there are some aspects to the placement of equipment that I've since found can hinder the speed of service.

James Tolich from Elmsett was behind all of the design, which is certainly one of The Dive's features I've been most proud of.

Do you take the truck far afield, or do you generally operate from regular spots?

So far I've kept within a 100km radius of Auckland's CBD, although the primary opportunities are usually within central Auckland. If I do have an opportunity that's slightly further out I have to decide whether the journey is worthwhile, taking into account fuel, staffing costs and risks to the truck with a longer drive.

Most typically I'm at the Silo Park Markets or at the No. 1 Queen Street Cafe and Bar. I'm always updating our social media sites to make sure people can find us, but later in the year I'll look to have a permanent spot to serve from.

What are the biggest challenges you've found owning a business like this?

The food culture in Auckland has had tremendous growth, but the restrictions for mobile food operations like The Dive are still very tight in terms of council bylaws. I think Auckland needs to start seeing the food truck industry as a way to introduce a dynamic that isn't achievable for a stationary restaurant.

Within the business I've found the challenges are generally associated with operating part-time, which creates inefficiencies and limitations. They're things like wasted produce because of four-day gaps in trading, hiring only part-time staff and reduced buying power. A year into the business I've now managed to minimise these problems, though, particularly around predicting volumes for events and getting some top-quality workers on board.

Winter was also quite a struggle. I entered the market last summer so I was taken aback by the brutality of winter and the general lack of events and private bookings. This winter I'll be parking the truck up for five or six weeks as I road trip from San Diego to Seattle then back down to Texas. I'll be checking out all the different food trucks and food truck parkups along the way, keeping a video blog to share with The Dive's followers and hopefully bringing back some inspiration.

On the other hand, what do you love about being in this particular industry?

The food truck game is really fun. There's real camaraderie between truckers, which makes events all the better. It's a great buzz when you're running into the crews from other trucks, doing food swaps and having conversations about the good, the bad and the ugly.

Customers also have a unique view of trucks. They really get into them and are really keen to follow your progress. Often we have customers coming back to the truck after their feed to say how they liked the food or just to say goodbye to us. It's more than a simple transaction to a lot of people.

More generally, what are some of the trends you're seeing in the food truck industry?

Food trucks are now really well established worldwide. In the States the industry is now quite mature, and Australia - particularly Melbourne and Sydney - has embraced food trucks with a positive attitude.

I think Sydney has a really simple way of monitoring food trucks; they have a limited number of licences issued and have marked each street red, orange or green. Red means no trade whatsoever, green streets are where it's free to trade and in orange streets trucks are allowed between 9pm and 6am when other restaurants are shut. I think something like this would be ideal for Auckland.

The Auckland truck scene is sure to hit a bit of a boom and so long as the trucks continue providing honest, quality food, more channels will be sure to open. But if there isn't any movement in allowing more street trading then it won't hit anything near its potential and you may even see a few trucks drop off.

Coming up in Your Business: New health and safety legislation comes into force in April. What changes has your business had to make because of this, and what impact will new rules around compliance have on your operation? If you've got a story to share, drop me a note: nzhsmallbusiness@gmail.com