March 20, 2017

Meet Janet Prensky of Food Truck Festivals of America in Allston

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Janet Prensky.

Janet, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Our PR and marketing firm, Aigner/Prensky Marketing Group was asked, back in 2011, to come up with a unique event idea for our client, The Pinehills. The Pinehills is a masterplanned community in Plymouth, MA. We were already doing music and art events for them so we thought a food-related event would be ideal. We had heard about these things called food trucks…making noise in LA and working their way East towards Boston. We said to the client, “How about a food truck Festival?” They agreed and off we went on a search for food trucks in New England. We found eight. They all agreed to come to The Pinehills and asked us how much food to bring. We had no idea how many people would come but we estimated 1,000. Well, we estimated wrong. 4,000 people showed up to The Pinehills that day. Trucks were running out of food and we were running to the Market and screaming, “Give us 20 pounds of American cheese STAT!!” We then ran back so we could give it all to the Grilled Cheese truck. It was madness!

At that point we knew we were onto something. In 2012 we became Food Truck Festivals of New England, In 2014, we became Food Truck Festivals of America. This allowed us to operate during the tough winter months when food trucks can’t function in NE. From that one festival in Plymouth, we now produce 16 festivals a year throughout the country from Palm Beach, FL to Albuquerque, NM to Asheville, NC to Milwaukee, WI to our longtime festivals in Worcester and Providence. Our list of eight trucks is now 2000! We also have a division, Food Trucks 2Go, where we deliver trucks for corporate and private events…employee lunches, company retreats and regular, weekly food truck programs at shopping centers and office parks. It’s been quite a ride!

Has it been a smooth road?
As with any start up, we encountered many challenges. One good example:

Our first festival in 2012 was in Boston at UMass. To ensure that we had a large crowd, we used Groupon. We sold 4000 “ticket books”. Each $40 book entitled you to a ticket for every truck and you could eat at all 30 trucks Using your tickets. Well, those 4000 buyers brought friends and families and started splitting up the books and before you knew it we had 10,000 people and the lines were mammoth and many trucks ran out of food. We handed out countless refunds. And don’t forget…those $40 books only cost $20 to the consumer on Groupon, of which we received $10. It was a debacle! We figured out how best to structure our fests after that. The ticket books are gone. We now simply charge $5 admission online before the festival. And you enter and just buy your food and beer separately. Much better!

And of course we are dealing with trucks. If I told you how many breakdowns, flat tires, busted generators and other technical difficulties we’ve dealt with over the years you would be stunned. But that’s the nature of the food truck world and you have to roll with it…(pun intended)

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Food Truck Festivals of America – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Food Truck Festivals of America is the only national touring food truck festival company in the U.S. We create Food Truck & Craft Beer Festivals throughout the country bringing 25+ food trucks and 50+ craft beers to communities that are not food truck saturated. So we don’t create fests in Manhattan, but we do in Syracuse and Rochester. In Boston, where there are so many trucks, we instead hold our fests in Worcester, New Bedford and Wachusett. We bring the trucks to places that don’t have many. It’s very exciting when we come to town!

We are particularly proud of the fact that we have generated all of our festival attendance through strategic public relations and media partnerships. We have not spent money on advertising since we started in 2012. The 5000-to-10,000 people we get at our festivals heard about us through our radio partner, local TV story or Facebook and twitter. Aigner/Prensky Marketing of course does our PR and social media, and having these skills in-house has been a great money saver.

Our offshoot, Food Trucks 2 Go, prides itself on delivering great, catered, corporate food truck events. Our clients include Converse, Genzyme, Timberland, Bain Capital, Athena Health, Jordan’s Furniture and Massport. We provide peace of mind to businesses as they know that we oversee all permitting, certificates of insurance and menu selection. We are a one stop shop for unique company events. Employees love seeing the trucks roll in.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
We love the vibrant food truck culture of Boston. Some of the great trucks in the U.S. operate in Boston like Roxy’s Grilled Cheese, Bon Me and Mei Mei. We also love the appreciation that the people of Boston have for the food the trucks create and their willingness and patience when it comes to waiting for that food. Lines are a part of the food truck experience and Bostonians “get it.”

What don’t we like about Boston? Well, on behalf of our trucks, we will say it with one word — WINTER!

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