February 2011

Happy New Year! I hope you're off to a good start in 2011. According to the National Restaurant Association, food trucks are the hottest new business options of 2011. Once reserved for bigger city markets, food trucks are now popping up all over the place. This month, Lorri Mealey offers some tips on starting up your own mobile food truck business.

As always, if you have any particular topics you'd like to see covered here, or if you'd like to contribute an article to the FNO newsletters - drop me a line!

Happy cooking!
Carrie
FNO Newsletter Editor

How to Start a Food Truck Business
by Lorri Mealey

A food truck is like a restaurant on wheels. It has several distinct advantages over a traditional eat-in restaurant. A food truck can go to where the customers are. It has pretty low overhead, compared to a restaurant, and requires far less staff. However a food truck is still a business that requires a lot of work and attention- especially in the first couple of years. Food truck owners put in long days and have similar problems as restaurant owners, such as slow seasons, bad weather, and sluggish economy. Read on to find out how you can start your own food truck business. Read more

FNO Tips & Tricks
by Julie


By now, you may have noticed the "Send my EPK" link next to the promoter's email address in festival search results. An Electronic Press Kit, or "EPK" is a collection of materials used to promote your business, whether you are an artist, musician, craftsperson, band, food vendor, or other type of exhibitor or company.

Your FNO profile & site serve as your EPK. Complete your site by adding bio, photos, video, calendar and blog. The more complete your EPK, the more a promoter can conveniently learn all about you from one easy link. You do all this from your "My Account" area, first click "Your Profile" and then "Modify Profile".

You need to have your email set up as the default email program to be able to utilize this feature.

(If you don't have a default mail program set up, you would simply need to email them without utilizing the convenient "send my epk" link by copying and pasting your FNO URL in an email that you compose manually. To see what your URL is, go to the same "modify profile" area and your URL, which you can edit, will be at the top).

And remember, bad pictures of good products come across as bad products. Be sure to upload good looking photos of you or your work that can really speak for yourself! You never have a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression!

If you have questions, get in touch with us, we are here to help.

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