Can a food truck operate as a dark kitchen?

[TailError]

Happy New Year everyone!

I represent a company that already operates a successful food truck business in London.

We were considering the idea of using one of our food trucks as a dark kitchen, so in other words to park it on a rented space and prepare food from there, focusing on delivery platforms only.

This would allow us to choose a central location and to leverage the ownership of the food truck, which puts us in a position to do not need to rent an actual equipped dark kitchen.

My question is, assuming that the food truck itself would need to follow the usual rules to operate, which would be the specific requirements of the rented parking space, considering that it would be used for such commercial purposes?

Is it even possible, from a legal standpoint, to operate in London by following such a model? And if so, which would be the steps to follow and potential limitations?

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

[Mark T Jones]

I can see no reason why a compliant truck can't double as a dark kitchen.

Potential issues would be down to the owner of the land on which it is located - with particular reference to traffic coming & going; noise, smells etc.

 

[ComPropSolicitor]

If you search for deliveroo on youtube there's a documentary that someone has done about the company and dark kitchens. Basically, LDN is full of these things and hardly anyone is aware of it they assume that when ordering from X restaurant the chef in that restaurant is preparing it when actually they have a Dark Kitchen located on one of the rented spaces provided by deliverool - can't remember where the deliveroo one actually is but it showed you and there was hundreds of them on it. It did explain that the licence was up for renewal shortly and they weren't 100 percent confident it would be renewed but that was for the 'deliveroo park' not the wider use of these dark kitchens

 

[The Resolver]

I would imagine small local industrial parks would be the best location - often see mobile food trucks parked there anyway so probably there would be limited restrictions. looks a great idea! Good luck with it and thanks for teaching me a new phrase. Can't wait to drop it casually into conversation.

 

[Abbyboo92]

Yes
JustEat are very open to dark kitchens as long as you meet legal food hygiene and safety requirements eg 2 sinks washable walls

I run a dark kitchen from home so message me if you want any advice.