As the summer winds to an end, and with it, the prime season for mobile food establishments, lawmakers are considering a bill to create statewide health regulations for food truck businesses.
Current regulations require trucks to obtain separate permits from the local board of health for every vehicle they use in each municipality the establishments conduct business in. While the businesses are required to meet certain provisions under the Retail Food Code, the local boards “may require additional information or plans.”
“To just not have any uniform standards in place is really a barrier for food trucks to be able to get to more communities,” said the bill’s sponsor Sen. Patrick O’Connor, R-Weymouth.
Compared to their brick and mortar counterparts, mobile food establishments must deal with several permitting processes based on how many municipalities — of which there are 351 statewide — they choose to conduct business in.
“We would love businesses to have less hurdles,” said Jessica Moore, director of government affairs for the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, in support of the bill. “If it’s someone who has both [a food truck and a brick-and-mortar restaurant], they know what they’re doing. We want to make business as safe, easy and clean as possible.”
Food truck owners have described the health regulation process as tedious, confusing, disorganized, costly and redundant.
And the format of permits vary across municipalities, according to owners. Towns decide how long the permits are valid for and can require separate permits for individual events if they wish.
Ryan Margulis, chief executive officer of Bees And Thank You, a mobile food establishment, testified at a Sept. 10 hearing of the Legislature’s Public Health Committee that he has spent more than $17,000 and 472 hours — the equivalent to about 59 full work days — on health permits over the last five years.
“We end up spending thousands and thousands of dollars per year,” said Mari Kilmain, treasurer of the SSFTA and events coordinator for Sarcastic Swine BBQ & Restaurant.
Some owners said the permitting process prevents them from conducting business in certain towns. Inspections typically take about 10 minutes, according to Kilmain, but the traveling time and costs add up.
O’Connor and several owners said support for the bill has been unanimous amongst mobile food establishments. The only concern he’s heard, O’Connor said, involves the money communities would lose from permitting fees.
“There’s other ways in which communities can recoup the money that they could potentially lose,” O’Connor said. “But again, we’re talking [about] not that much money, a couple thousand for each one of the communities. Growing the industry will see more benefit.”
“It just really comes down to common sense,” said Clint Smith, an original member of the SSFTA, referring to the bill.
Smith, owner of South Shore Taco Guy, services 24 towns across Massachusetts and pays about $3,500-$3,800 a year in permitting fees—but it isn’t the cost that bothers him.
“It’s the redundancy and time it takes to get these inspections [that’s the problem] for me personally,” Smith said.
One goal O’Connor has with passing this bill is for mobile food businesses to build themselves up and invest in brick-and-mortar restaurants, which will increase meal availability, taxes and employment.
Katie Keefe, president of the SSFTA and owner of Ellie’s Treats, said the current permitting process has affected opportunities for businesses and deterred people from entering the industry.
“There are people that genuinely just do not get started in the industry because they’re so overwhelmed by it,” Keefe said. “If the permitting process was simplified in Massachusetts, I definitely think you would see more food trucks.”