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A commercial district in Cham at the end of March. Black rain clouds above us, gray asphalt below us. The thermometer shows 8 degrees. A dreamy day looks different but Christoph Gut (54) is in good spirits. Gut is the operator and owner of “Woody Pizza” – a small company with two food trucks, two food stands and eight permanent employees;
Today is the start of the season for food truck #1, nicknamed “Gloria”, where Gut drives nearly 3,000 kilometers to catering and events in Switzerland each year. The idea of making your own food truck arose in 2016. Gut worked as a freelance catering company for nearly 25 years and was looking for a new challenge. “I’ve always been a huge fan of classic cars and once did a truck test in the army. I thought to myself: If it’s a food truck, then it’s something special. Not an ordinary 3,5 tons, but one that stands out from the crowd. At one point I ran into an old 1969 Saurer.”
Pizza oven weighs two tons
Gut enlisted help from the Rusterholz body shop in Richterswil ZH to convert the 11-tonne truck. The original 12-liter inline-six engine was left untouched under the chrome-trimmed hood. Behind it, Gut has a container built on a reinforced chassis. The superstructure, which is five meters long and 2.30 meters wide, includes a kitchen and service station with a fresh water tank, as well as a place for the Valoriani fireclay brick pizza oven imported from Italy. It alone brings almost two tons to the scale. “The oven is the heart. During operation, the interior heats up to 500 degrees. It retains the heat so well that it’s still 300 degrees hot the next day.” Why is she cooking pizza today but not a hamburger? “I love pizza and I can eat it every day.”
Prior to his first assignment in April 2018, Gut attended an intensive five-day pizzaiolo course near Venice. Back in Switzerland, she worked with a baker for weeks to find the perfect base. “Yeast dough is like a living entity that you have to treat properly for something good to come out of it,” Gut says. Today Woody Pizza processes 15 tons of flour per year, which is processed into portion-sized dough balls every day at its fixed location in the Freiruum market hall in Zug. “Of course, looks are important and I have a high reputation for my trucks. But it is difficult to be successful without the best product and the best ingredients. Quality is above all and at the end of everything.»
Andreas Albonico-Seiler (36) agrees that quality and innovative ideas are necessary to survive on stage. In 2019, Seiler founded the Swiss Food Truck Association to publicly represent the interests and concerns of the ever-growing mobile catering industry and to network members with one another. The association is currently the most important institution in the Swiss food truck scene, with over 100 members.
“We want to do educational work with the association and give start-up assistance to the founders,” explains Albonico-Seiler. Many newcomers approach their projects with little naivete and underestimate major challenges. “The passion for cooking is not a business plan. Albonico-Seiler requires versatile knowledge, good networking and innovative ideas – not just when it comes to food, but also when it comes to performance,” says Albonico-Seiler. “The world wasn’t expecting the new food trucks.”
Of course, there will still be room for good concepts today. But the explosion among providers triggered by the pandemic could have made it increasingly difficult to maintain good standing. “It can take years to break even a food truck.”
Citroën turns into a rolling bar
As with Corinne Glanzmann (40) and Drink Bar, the scene isn’t always about big profits, it’s often about a lot of joy and passion. Freelance photographer from Solothurn traveled to 2019 with colleague Marianne Mischler (51). Spain. The idea for a mobile bar comes up during a long walk on the beach: “We wanted to get out of our comfort zone and try something completely new. At first we thought of a food truck. However, since neither of us had training in cooking and working with food has certain risks, we decided to try a roller bar.»
By chance in Switzerland: Porzellanfabrik Langenthal BE is offering a 1974 Citroën HY for sale. Glanzmann and Mischler didn’t hesitate, they hit it off and immediately started converting: The old countertop needed some adjustment to make room for the fridge and water connections, and the interior color had to be adjusted a bit. They can take over the folding shelves and the bar one-on-one: “Citroën was originally extended by one metre, which gives us a lot of space inside. A real gem,” said Glanzmann enthusiastically.
Small workload, big fun
Both see their bars as a hobby and not as a steady source of income – calculated workload throughout the year? It doesn’t exceed 10 percent now, but we want to increase it to 20 percent in the future.” So Glanzmann does not take it lightly: he took a bartending course in Spain, and also works as a bartender here in Switzerland every Friday evening in Solothurn.
So far they haven’t headed for a food festival: too little planning security, too high booth fees. They would focus on events such as business occasions or special events. “There we can offer tailor-made drinks that are always very well received,” explains Marianne Mischler. On this evening at the end of March, in the old town of Willisau, we can see for ourselves that the creations of the drinks bar for Glanzmann and Mischler, the first event of the year after the winter holidays, are delicious. The mobile bar is very crowded, the guests laugh, praise, have fun. A perfect start to the season for Corinne Glanzmann: “That’s exactly why we started this project: We want to do something good for people. If we can do that, we’ll be happy too.”
An up-to-date list of the biggest Swiss street food festivals in 2023 can be found at the link below.
Source: Blick
I’m Ella Sammie, author specializing in the Technology sector. I have been writing for 24 Instatnt News since 2020, and am passionate about staying up to date with the latest developments in this ever-changing industry.
