As the summer gets into swing and fates, food markets and festivals start it is the perfect time to start thinking about setting up the street food business that you have always been dreaming about. Here’s our handy guide to exactly what street food catering supplies you will need to get up and running as a successful street food chef.

What is street food?

Street food is exactly as it sounds - food that can be eaten on the street. It can be something grabbed and eaten on the go as part of a busy day, or an unmissable part of the experience at a food market or festival. It’s a developing and exciting sector with more festivals, markets, and events happening each year in the U.K with a growing need for new and innovative food offers. While fish and chips, or burgers might be your first thought when you think of British street food more creative choices like Korean BBQ, burritos, or an Indian chaat are becoming more popular.

What equipment do you need for street food?

Whilst some of the equipment you will need will depend on what style and type of street food you are planning on serving, there are some key elements of street food catering supplies that everyone is going to need to think about when they are starting out.

Take it away

One of the vital parts of your business to get right is how food is going to be served to your customers. Poor quality containers and cutlery that makes it hard for food to be enjoyed ruins their experience before they have even tasted anything. Our wide range of disposable crockery provides high-quality solutions for a wide range of different cuisines with soup pots, cake boxes, food cartons for curries and noodles, greaseproof for pizzas and pasties and even taster pots to tempt curious customers. We of course have a wide and growing range of biodegradable options for more eco-friendly options too.

Staying safe

We all know the importance of running a hygienic kitchen and this is no different in a street food business. With a lack of space and often busy turn over it’s even more important to think carefully about your necessary cleaning products. Whatever you find you need, don’t forget that all-important blue roll and sanitiser - we all know you can never have enough.

To stay compliant your van or street food business still needs all of the same kitchen safety signs so don’t forget to add one of the handy kitchen sign packs that has everything that you will need to keep your team safe.

Getting it there

Without the luxury of a large kitchen, it is so important to stay organised and think about how you will store things. Whether you are prepping everything off-site and transporting to your street food business, or just sorting and organising your ingredients so it is all at hand we have lots of clever solutions for serving, storing and displaying from thermo boxes up to 100L to gastronorm trays and spice boxes.

And taking it away

Waste disposal can be trickier to manage in a street food business but we have plenty of solutions for that too with a wide range of bin, bin bags and recycling options.

Looking the part

As part of a street food business at a food market, you are on display to the customers so it is vital to make sure you are looking the part of a street food chef. Make sure your whites are white, aprons are clean and don’t forget to take care of your feet with some Birkenstocks shoes. There are polo shirts in a wide range of colours too so that all of the team can look their best. A great image really helps to attract customers.

If it gets busy

We’re all hoping that your street food business becomes a roaring success. If that happens you might need to consider how to keep everyone waiting to be served in an orderly queue and we find barrier posts and ropes do the trick at keeping everything running smoothly.

Don’t forget the essentials

As well as thinking about what you need for your street food business, don’t forget to make sure you have everything you need to create amazing, memorable dishes for your customers from your chef’s knives and food prep tools to more specialised equipment like pasta boilers, kebab grills and crepe makers with handy sauce bottle warmers.

Whatever type of food you are considering, it’s an exciting time to be entering the growing street food UK market so start preparing your street food supplies now to make your new business a huge success. At Cooksmill we have everything you could need in one place at wholesale prices for everyone!