I live in Taiwan and the food market here is INTENSE.
My kid loves chicken nuggets from McDonald’s. So when I was visiting America, I noticed that the size of the nuggets are about 20% thinner and noticeably shorter than what we have locally. It wasn’t always like this. I still lived in the US during early pandemic.
In Taiwan, there are so many restaurants and food stalls and online delivery and Line messaging app group buys that everyone is trying to get a tiny slice of the consumers food budget. It’s because the barrier to entry is so low. Less than 1500USD, you can get a food stall and materials to start a food cart.
What that means is that restaurants who pull this shit gets quickly found out and the restaurant is gone pretty quickly.
Less than 1500USD, you can get a food stall and materials to start a food cart.
I bought a used school bus a few years ago, and as part of the search process I started running into food trucks for sale (here in the US). Oh my fucking god are those things expensive, even when they’re already well-used. It’s no wonder food truck food is so absurdly expensive, and it must still take them forever to pay off their initial costs. Additionally, a lot of places here won’t even let you operate a food truck at all unless it’s associated with a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
I actually tried to open a food truck in Washington. I actually went as far as finding a used truck that was already equipped with fire suppression installed and have some of the equipment I needed.
Because the truck was in Oregon, I had to get it certified in WA and that was something like 5k and not counting any retrofits I had to do to just get it to code.
The truck was 58k(in 2018) and added together it would have been an investment of over 150k before the doors even open. I gave up after.
Yeah, that was the price range of the trucks and equipment I was seeing. I’m just surprised there are any food trucks operating anywhere at all in this country.
Yeah the Taiwan food scene is incredibly competitive and everything tastes so amazing. If the good is not good, then you get priced out. There are even Michelin Stared street vendors, although it may not be indicative of the quality.
I had a full meal at a night market for 6 USD including desert.
The free market would be a kid opening a better burger van across the road from Maccas and everyone jumping ship. The reality is you need zoning approval from the local governance, licensing fees, parking fees, etc, before you even have a van or any cooking gear yet. Then everyone goes to Maccas anyway because it’s familiar even if it’s bad.
I live in Taiwan and the food market here is INTENSE.
My kid loves chicken nuggets from McDonald’s. So when I was visiting America, I noticed that the size of the nuggets are about 20% thinner and noticeably shorter than what we have locally. It wasn’t always like this. I still lived in the US during early pandemic.
In Taiwan, there are so many restaurants and food stalls and online delivery and Line messaging app group buys that everyone is trying to get a tiny slice of the consumers food budget. It’s because the barrier to entry is so low. Less than 1500USD, you can get a food stall and materials to start a food cart.
What that means is that restaurants who pull this shit gets quickly found out and the restaurant is gone pretty quickly.
I bought a used school bus a few years ago, and as part of the search process I started running into food trucks for sale (here in the US). Oh my fucking god are those things expensive, even when they’re already well-used. It’s no wonder food truck food is so absurdly expensive, and it must still take them forever to pay off their initial costs. Additionally, a lot of places here won’t even let you operate a food truck at all unless it’s associated with a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
I actually tried to open a food truck in Washington. I actually went as far as finding a used truck that was already equipped with fire suppression installed and have some of the equipment I needed.
Because the truck was in Oregon, I had to get it certified in WA and that was something like 5k and not counting any retrofits I had to do to just get it to code.
The truck was 58k(in 2018) and added together it would have been an investment of over 150k before the doors even open. I gave up after.
Yeah, that was the price range of the trucks and equipment I was seeing. I’m just surprised there are any food trucks operating anywhere at all in this country.
It’s kinda like subway franchises. You’re paying hella money and at the end you still make minimum wage.
Yeah the Taiwan food scene is incredibly competitive and everything tastes so amazing. If the good is not good, then you get priced out. There are even Michelin Stared street vendors, although it may not be indicative of the quality.
I had a full meal at a night market for 6 USD including desert.
The free market would be a kid opening a better burger van across the road from Maccas and everyone jumping ship. The reality is you need zoning approval from the local governance, licensing fees, parking fees, etc, before you even have a van or any cooking gear yet. Then everyone goes to Maccas anyway because it’s familiar even if it’s bad.
Now you’re making me want some fried sweet potato balls! Or what’s the new vendor item now?