He adds: “We just hope the guys whose concepts are strong will make it. The others will fall by the wayside eventually. There isn’t enough room.”
Taqado Mexican Kitchen general manager Timothy Hocks agrees: “I am obviously worried this is bit of a trend at the moment and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Trucks are a great thing but they need to be done by foodies to be done properly.”
He continues: “What I generally believe will happen, is that there will be a big influx of people doing this and the buzz will die down. And like everything, the strong will survive and the weak will disappear on the side. A lot of people think it’s the case of going into the market and buying 10 trucks and plonking them and hoping you make money. As we all know, with F&B in Dubai, it’s not the same as it used to be. They need to be really aggressive and the product needs to be strong.”
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Jake’s acting general manager Nicolas Cuomo, however, says: “We’re not here to compete with anyone but complement everyone. Happy days if more food trucks were to open up. In fact, the more open up, the better it is, and the more people start accepting the idea of food trucks serving good food.”
Assadourian says: “Our view is that Dubai should definitely limit the number of licences it is giving. We’re very fortunate to be able to take lessons from some of the best practices that have been developed by other world capitals such as Sydney or Boston, which have developed quite thorough regulations around mobile food.
“Sydney has limited licensing to 50 trucks. I think the same needs to be true to Dubai to ensure that the government is not overwhelmed by the vast amounts of requests that are coming in. And also to ensure that the consumers are able to experience the most high quality food trucks possible.”
He is also keen to promote the idea that food truck licences be limited to home-grown brands only, in line with the company’s mandates.
So what’s next for this trend? There are a number of people who haven’t publicly announced their move in the market, but there are quite a few in the wings working on their own vans or trailers. We can confirm at least one more hotel brand, other than Vida, has had a food truck delivered to them — so it’s no holds barred on who can enter this sector.
Duke says: “There is an ever-growing interest in the concept and with the increasing venues that can accommodate food trucks across the Emirates, we see this as a growing industry.”
Shah concludes: “In most of the cases, it’s very unpredictable about what will happen in 2015 with food trucks. We’re all wading in there like the Wild West… and we just hope for the best.”
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May 6, 2015 , Canada
As a Company who has manufactured American Food Trucks for over 15 years we did see an increase in inquiries fro the UAE and especially Dubai over the 3+ years. Even at the very early days in America there were hurdles to jump over as with any new venture where city councils are not sure how to t...