Switzerland is an ideal place to have a street food business with your own food truck: light bureaucracy, low taxes, efficient services, receptive public open to all kinds of cuisines.
In Switzerland, as in many other industrialized land, during the week, people like having a fast but quality lunch at the food trucks of the area and, when summer begins, during weekends, street food events are mobbed.
For these reasons, the number of food trucks in Switzerland is rapidly growing, together with the number of street food events.
Here below we show you some of the best food trucks in Switzerland.
THF – The Hamburger Foundation
The most popular food truck festivals in Switzerland
Festivals dedicated to street food and food trucks are always more and are always more crowded. A common tendency in other countries in Europe and in Italy as well, where these kinds of festivals are multiplying every year. Not to mention food truck festivals in USA, huge events.
Even companies participate for promotional purposes renting a food truck when they do not have already one.
Food truck festival in Locarno | 27/29 April 2018
At the street food festival in Locarno food and food trucks are protagonist: trucks with professional kitchens, vans and converted busses, Piaggio Apecar transformed in small itinerant restaurants, coming from all over Switzerland and, sometimes, also from Italy.
A gastronomic event where the meals served by food truckers are authentic and represent the culinary traditions of the country they are from.
The universal language of good eating and good drinking will meet the stories, the cultures and the anecdotes that you can discover in the center of Locarno, in Piazza Grande, during a weekend in spring.
In the beautiful frame of Piazza Grande, in the historic center of easy access, you can taste from entrée to dessert with a wide range of dishes, together with beer, wines and all kinds of beverages. All at the sound of music and street shows: stories, music and culture.
Dates and opening hours of the food truck festival in Locarno (Italian Switzerland – Ticino) :
- Friday 27 | 17:00 – 23:00
- Saturday 28 | 11:00 – 23:00
- Sunday 29 | 11:00 – 17:00
Food Truck festival in Losanna | 01-03 June 2018
The most popular street food festivals in Switzerland
Street Food Festival Lugano | 31 marzo – 02 aprile 2018
To know more about it, you can visit:
http://www.luganoturismo.ch/
Street Food Festival Zurich | 24 May – 3 June 2018
Interesting video on the event of 2017
If you want to know more about it, you can visit:
https://www.foodzurich.com
If you want to know when and where all main street food festivals will take place in Switzerland, you can visit:
http://streetfood-festivals.ch/#events
Starting an itinerant business in Switzerland
From what we have said before, it is evident that the street food sector in Switzerland is growing fast and can offer great opportunities to new small entrepreneurs and companies. Great news for all those who are thinking about buying a food truck and expand their business on the road.
Another point in its favor is that to start an itinerant business in Switzerland the bureaucracy is light and efficient. The application has very few restrictions:
- the applicant for authorization, in the two years preceding the submission of the application for authorization, has not been convicted of a crime or a crime in relation to which the exercise of the itinerant trade in itself carries a risk of recidivism. In the case of a discounted prison sentence, the period considered begins at the time of release;
- the application for authorization must be filed with the competent cantonal authority or the authorized trade association at least 20 days before the start of the activity or before the expiry of the authorization in progress.
Attachment to the application:
- n° 2 current picture in passport format;
- an extract from the commercial register related to the company for which the employee carries out the activity, issued during the previous three months, or a valid identity document (passport, driving license, identity card) in case the applicant or the company for which he carries out the activity are not subjected to the obligation to register in the commercial register; in case of a written procedure, a photocopy of the abovementioned documents is sufficient;
- an extract from the judicial register issued during the previous month by the competent federal bureau;
- a certificate of domicile issued during the previous twelve months.
Foreign citizens with residence or domicile abroad are entitled to an authorization under the same conditions. The provisions of legislation concerning foreigners are reserved.
The documents issued abroad must be equivalent to the correspondent documents issued in Switzerland.
If you need more information about how to get the authorization to itinerant trade in Canton Ticino, Switzerland, you can visit: https://m4.ti.ch/di/pol/autorizzazioni-e-permessi/commercio-ambulante/ [language: italian]
