Pima County Department of Health host community food truck forum

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Starting on a food truck can be tricky, with a bunch of permits and steps needed to take for you to start your business and start serving your community.

That's where the Pima County Department of Health comes in, hosting the mobile food trucks community forum.

Desarae Rose Garcia has put in the work to start building her dream food truck.

“Honestly, you would think that this is the beginning, but the journey has been my whole life,” Garcia said. “ I've been cooking since I was about five years old, learning from my great-grandmother. After high school, I got my culinary diploma. After that, I decided this is officially what I wanted to do.”

And the process of getting a food truck set up that right way can be a little daunting.

“I want to say it's a very big project, but I don't discourage it at all,” Garcia said. “If that's what you truly want and that's what you're going to do for your future, do it.”

That’s why Pima County’s mobile food truck forum is meant to help them get safely set up while chasing that goal.

“All right, so this was a community forum for all of our mobile food truck owners, whether they currently have a permit or they're looking to receive a permit or they're wanting to get started in mobile food,” said Brenda Katterman, environmental health supervisor for the Pima County Health Department.

The forum brought future food truck owners together and taught them the importance of applying for permits, preparing for health inspections, and maintaining proper sanitation.

The forum is meant to help the new business owners start their food trucks up safely.

“We want them to be healthy, and then that helps the operator along the way also, because there are consequences,” Katterman stated. “Unfortunately, if people are getting sick…it can lead to death. So we just want to make sure that our public is as safe as possible.”

All of it in the hopes of helping these new vendors stay inspection-ready so they can keep serving the community.

“You're able to reach out and ask simple questions, which I had thought was super complicated, but now I see it as very simple,” Garcia said. You just have to make that first step and people will guide you.”