Chic Spotlight: Cincinnati Food Truck Association

Cincy Chic: What inspired the Cincinnati Food Truck Association (CFTA)?
Elizabeth Romero, CFTA President and Owner of SugarSnap! Truck: It was the need for all us to come together and become one voice so we could advocate for food truck-friendly laws. We wanted to create best practices amongst our members so we could to continue to positively represent the food truck industry. We needed to grow together as an industry because of the growth locally and nationally.

Cincy Chic: What does the CFTA do?
Romero: We advocate for the members, we have worked with City Council to get the mobile vending program status from pilot to become an established program. We have gotten two new parking spots added to the mobile vending program. We have worked with different cities to plan food truck rallies in Milford, West Chester and Walnut Hills. We’ve also helped educate others who are interested in having food trucks at their events.

Cincy Chic: How do you help local businesses and your clientele?
Romero: We’ve supported each other, we are a family. We help our members by being a local contact for event planners. We have an inquiry form on our website for event planners to submit their request. Once the formed is submitted it goes directly to all of our members, and if a truck is interested in participating they will contact the event planners directly. We help our clientele by giving them a different dining experience; each truck has something unique that makes them special. We have worked with non-profit organizations to help them raise money for their causes and bring more people to the event, because we have fans that will follow us all over Tri-State.

Cincy Chic: What’s you vision for the future with CFTA?
Romero: We want to continue to advocate for our members and continue to educate others about food trucks. Food trucks are very sanitary and we are required to have a mobile vending license by the state. We also get inspected on a regular basis. We are required to have an operating kitchen within our truck – the same as if we were in a brick and mortar establishment. We’d like to get more prime mobile vending spots added to the mobile vending program downtown. We would love to work with other cities to plan more food truck rallies.

Cincy Chic: Is there anything new on the horizon?
Romero: We’re currently working on planning out own events that will have us popping up all over the Tri-State, so keep your eyes out for that. Some upcoming events include:
Milford Food Truck Rally – Saturday, July 26th
West Chester Food Truck Rally – Friday, August 8th
Walnut Hills Street Food Festival – Saturday, September 27th

Cincy Chic: Where can readers go to learn more about CFTA?
Romero: Readers can visit our website at www.cincinnatifoodtruckassociation.org, like us Facebook or follow us on Twitter.