Food Truck Festival launches for warmer months
The annual Food Truck Festival is underway, showcasing vendors from all over Medicine Hat each Sunday.
This is the third year of the festival, which was created by a few of the vendors to grow their markets within the city said Stacey Wallis, one of the organizers and owner of Kona Ice of Southeast Alberta.
“This is a chance for all of us food trucks to come together and show Medicine Hat what we have to offer as small businesses,” she said. “This is also a great place for families to come on the weekend, and it’s great for us truck owners to get new followers.”
Despite two weekends of non-ideal weather, the annual festival has been running for the past two weeks from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Visitor’s Information Centre. Wallis says the each year the seasonal event has grown.
“People in Medicine Hat have been very receptive to food trucks,” she said.
“Considering the size of our community, we have a lot of food trucks and that just shows you how supportive the community is.”
Wallis said the recent food truck craze can be attributed to many things, but one of the biggest factors is Canadians’ love of being out doors.
“Everyone loves to be outside and we as Canadians love to spend our warm-weather months outside,” she said. “Food truck events like this allow families to come out, get a nice, locally made meal and eat outside as a family. It is a very different experience than a restaurant.”
Wallis said the best way to see where your favourite food truck is within the city is to follow them on various social media.
“Social media has been amazing for the food truck industry because people can quickly and find out where we’re going to be, and it costs us nothing to do,” she said. “All of the trucks here have really solid followings on social media, and it has just become a huge part of the business.”