After becoming the first Canadian university to offer a food truck on campus with the introduction of Hungry Nomad in 2013, UBC is shrinking its daily food truck operations.
Over the past few weeks, two of UBC’s three food trucks — School of Fish and Hungry Nomad — have disappeared from campus, and UBC Food Services’ (UBCFS) Feed Me Now webpage lists them as closed.
At its peak, UBCFS operated five trucks, but it has since retired It’s About Thai and Roaming Bowl from the daily fleet and reserve them for special events. Currently, the only available daily food truck option is Dog House.
UBCFS Director Colin Moore attributed School of Fish and Hungry Nomad’s disappearance to a staffing shortage.
“It’s a difficult labour environment right now to hire people and get them to come out to UBC,” he said.
According to him, hiring will likely be complete in the next few weeks. But when School of Fish and Hungry Nomad return, the food trucks will have to rotate their presence — meaning there will be at most two food trucks on campus at a time.
While Moore said that this decision is “not necessarily” a result of staffing shortages or profitability, he acknowledged that the food trucks are not profitable.
“The food truck business is expensive to operate, especially in a corporate company environment,” he said.
“Most food trucks are self-operated … they make the food, they drive the truck, they take it home. That’s just not the model we have at UBC … We’re committed to our unionized workforce here on campus.”
Moore also noted that while School of Fish is the UBCFS’s most popular option, popularity and profitability aren’t necessarily behind the decision to rotate the trucks.
“Profit isn’t our only measure of success,” he said.
“Our job is to provide a great food experience for student on campus, specifically within the academic core. Food trucks is one way of doing that, to animate and provide a diverse food experience. We’re still committed to doing that on a limited basis for this fall.”
In the meantime, students have expressed mixed opinions about the trucks, as some felt satisfied with their quality and convenience while others lamented the high price and small portion.
“I was never hungry enough to justify paying $8.50 for a hotdog.or [sic] $13 for fish and chips,” commented Reddit user chengt1.
Several students mourned the temporary loss of the Hungry Nomad and its Montreal-style poutine in particular. “I probably had it once a week— it was super filling and only $10…Will definitely be sad to see it at reduced hours,” commented Reddit user Indian_Troll.