As of: March 7, 2024, 8:33 a.m
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Franziska Weidner from Feldafing set up more than 20 food trucks in Munich for a video for her presentation in Hamburg at the finale of the Gastr Founder Award.
© private/Titian Voss
During the pandemic, Franziska Weidner founded a community of convenience in 2020 to bring food truck operators together.
Today she and the company “Food Trucks United” in Hamburg are in the finals of the German gastro start-up award.
Feldafing
– “Everyone together” is the motto of this year’s “Interorga”.
The leading international trade fair for bakeries, pastry shops, hotels and restaurants will take place in Hamburg from March 8th to 12th.
The German Gastro Startup Prize will be awarded there on Friday.
The company “Food Trucks United” from Feldafing is also among the five finalists.
For owner Franziska Weidner, this year's motto is particularly nice because her company pursues a similar goal.
It all started in the middle of the Corona pandemic: When time permitted, the trained event manager helped her father Andreas Weidner, who travels in Munich and the surrounding area with his food trailer as “Mr. of Swabia”.
In 2020, the then 26-year-old founded the special purpose group “Food Trucks United”.
Its goal was and is to offer a platform to food truck operators, who became particularly important during this time.
“It started as a one-man operation,” remembers Weidner.
It has now become much more than that.
“Food Trucks United” has been a registered company since November.
“We made the decision to set up a GmbH in order to be able to help even more truckers,” says the 29-year-old.
The platform acts as a kind of catering agency.
If a customer makes a request, the appointment is shared with the participating partners.
The more than 150 participating food trucks are not competitors, but colleagues.
The process is also pleasant for the customer.
For example, if ten trucks are needed for a company event, the customer can send a request to Franziska Weidner instead of recruiting each food truck individually.
However, there is no type of event in the calendar: “Food Trucks United does not organize food truck festivals,” explains the owner.
Nevertheless, each individual trucker retains his or her freedom of choice.
Anyone who wants to sell at a festival can of course do so.
Trucks at around 700 events
“Food Trucks United” was represented at around 700 events last year, 450 of which were company events.
For Franziska Weidner, there is still room for improvement: “We are still far from where we want to be,” she emphasizes.
One of the reasons why she applied for the German Gastro Startup Award in November: “We want to make the whole thing even more professional with the award,” explains Weidner.
“I believe in what we do, why shouldn’t we show it?” asks the owner rhetorically.
Through a self-made video contribution, the company made it into the top 30 out of 100 participants.
A social media competition brought the agency into the top ten and thus into the semi-finals in Hamburg.
At the beginning of February, Franziska Weidner convinced the expert jury of her concept in a ten-minute presentation, securing herself and “Food Trucks United” a place in the final.
“To convince gastronomy enthusiasts that our concept is the best,” is Weidner’s goal.
She only has five minutes to do this in the final.
The company owner describes her “practical concept” as the “ravages of time”.
“It’s fast, hip and flexible.
It reflects our times.” The fact that restaurateurs would work together in this way does not yet exist anywhere in Germany.
The 29-year-old is currently working on her final presentation.
Last week, 22 trucks met for a video shoot in the Olympic Park.
She herself was there with her own food truck from “Herr von Schwaben”.
The fact that this was even possible is due to the network that has been built up over the years.
And it should continue to grow after the finale.
“The focus now is on the Founder’s Prize, then we’ll see where the journey takes us,” explains Weidner.
“Food Trucks United” is currently looking for a new office and storage space.
Four years ago, the owner probably wouldn't have thought that the whole project would grow so quickly.
“The company was never planned, and now it has become so big,” says Franziska Weidner happily.
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