Food trucks becoming more popular in Covid era
The Commerce Ministry is planning to promote the food-truck business, especially since it has grown amid the Covid-19 crisis and was close to Bt3 billion in value last year.
Deputy Commerce Minister Weerasak Wangsuphakijkosol said he had told the Department of Business Development to come up with promotions to draw more small operators into the food-truck business.
He added that operators have more flexibility as they can use their trucks as a guarantee for loans.
Meanwhile, the Food Truck Club (Thailand) said that though orders for new food trucks in the beginning of 2020 had come to a stop after the arrival of Covid-19, sales rose in the third and fourth quarters.
The food-truck business is flexible and has low risk, compared to normal restaurants. The value of the business in 2019 was Bt2.64 billion, which rose by 11.97 per cent to Bt2.95 billion in 2020.
Statistics show that 60 per cent of food-truck operators are in the Central region, followed by 14 per cent in the North, 9 per cent in Northeast, 6 per cent each in East and South and 5 per cent in the West of the country.
Products sold via food trucks in Thailand are international food (27 per cent), drink (26 per cent) and Thai food (22 per cent).