Food trucks are a newly-developing aspect of the South Korean street food scene. Some, including ice cream trucks, sell frozen or prepackaged food; others have on-board kitchens and prepare food from scratch. Sandwiches, hamburgers, french fries, and other regional fast food fare are common. In recent years, associated with the pop-up restaurant phenomenon, food trucks offering gourmet cuisine and a variety of specialties and ethnic menus have become particularly popular.
History
Before 2014, turning a vehicle into a food service truck was banned in South Korea over safety and sanitation concerns. The ban was lifted in August 2014 by the President of South Korea at the time, Park Geun-Hye, as part of her deregulation efforts to help revitalise South Korea's economy and create new forms of employment in the country. She stated that unnecessary business restrictions were a "lump of cancer killing our [South Korea's] body", and she aimed to reduce the number of these regulations by over 80% by 2016. Food trucks were first approved for operation in designated spaces inside amusement and public parks, and the South Korean government later expanded this to other designated spaces around sports facilities, riversides, college campuses and highway rest areas.
Regulations
Food trucks in Korea must report their business to the local district office. All other food trucks are illegal, and they can be treated as general food restaurant. It can not be sold anywhere else, but it can be operated only by licensed facilities, tourist attractions, sports facilities, urban parks, and streams. A food truck with a legal license must have a business report in the truck. Not having a business report, a truck can be considered as illegal food truck. The government is trying to cultivate legal food trucks. Republic of Korea's government legalized food trucks in September 2014. In July 2016, the government reviewed the revision and decision to allow food trucks to move freely in order to ease the grievances of conventional legal food trucks.
Government regulations specify that the height of the cooking area shall be less than 1.5 m (1.2 m) and the area shall be not less than 0.5 sq m and not more than 0.5 sq m.
Policies for growth of food trucks
Seoul
According to the Seoul city council on July 18, the city council discussed ways to invigorate food trucks in the Seoul Metropolitan area by holding a conference session with related departments and food trucks.
According to the Seoul Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) released in Seoul, the number of food trucks reported in Seoul totaled 424,000 in late March, accounting for 32 percent of the total. Currently, the number of food trucks sold is 250 days, and the average business period is 144 days after start-up. Thirty-five percent of the total sales were closed in six months, accounting for about 80 percent of the total sales and the lowest among the total buyers. However, the food truck owners are having a hard time due to a lack of food truck operating areas with stable profits. Seoul City has been searching for possible food truck locations since last September, but it has not been able to set up more than half of the stores due to opposition from existing businesses, insufficient flow populations, and difficulties in transportation. Sales at the store are also sluggish. Another problem was the fact that food truck sales are only taking place at events and festivals. In other words, the movie has limits on the creation of regular profits except for the night market and the Han River project. Such poor conditions caused complaints from vendors at the conference.