Environmental friendly food carts – lessons from the food truck scene in NYC
The green MRV100 food cart from the company Move Systems, is coming to the streets of New York City this summer. The new food cart is cleaner, more quiet and the unit runs on compressed natural gas with a solar panel providing supplementary power. The food cart has the ability to charge from the electrical grid. It’s equipped with a point of sales system including the ability to pay by credit card and has electronic inventory control. The cart is equipped with a restaurant-quality kitchen with better refrigeration facilities than typical at most food trucks.
If you have ever been to New York City in the past, you will remember the great ‘dirty water’ hotdog carts with the pretzels and in more recent years the famous food trucks. There are as many as 8.000 mobile food vendors, serving all kinds of street foods. Most of these food trucks are relatively old-school. The vendors are cooking with propane gas and their trucks are diesel-powered dirty and noisy verhicles.
Lessons from the food truck scene in NYC
Amsterdam is just allowing the first food trucks in the city and food truck festivals like TREK are getting more and more popular. This might be the best time to start working with new, sustainable, food trucks. We recently spotted another new generation food truck by Peugeot, which will be present at the French Pavilion during the World Expo Milano 2015. Before we spoil Amsterdam with the charming but polluting food trucks, let’s look at more sustainable alternatives.
Mobile food cart 2.0 and its investors
The deal to bring the carts to the streets was announced with support from city officials and members of the Street Vendor Project advocacy group. Participating vendors will lease the MRV100s free of cost, so free rent. MOVE will get its revenue by providing the compressed natural gas that powers the carts, in partnership with investor Clean Energy Fuels, and by taking a portion of the merchant fee from the point-of-sale system developed by investor and partner First Data. The MRV100 will be rolled out slowly: 100 carts by summer’s end, and another 400 by this time next year.
Benefits for the owners, workers, the guests and the city
The levels of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide that are potentially dangerous for both operators, customers and the city could be reduced substantially if most of the diesel-powered traditional food trucks are replaced with these new mobile food carts like the MRV100.
Website: MoveSystems
