ON THE MOVE:

HOW MOBILE FOOD UNITS IMPACT

LOCAL FOOD IN THE ROGUE VALLEY

Mark Shibley
Rebekah Ratcliff
Southern Oregon University
SOAN 414 | Winter 2017
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 2

PROJECT GOALS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2

LITERATURE REVIEW 3
GROWTH OF THE MOBILE FOOD PHENOMENON 3
DEFINITIONS 3
HISTORY OF MOBILE FOOD UNITS 3

METHODS 5

LIMITATIONS 6

INTRODUCTION
In communities worldwide, food reflects social, political, environmental, cultural,
policy, and economic changes. Researching food locally is more than an exploration of diets.
Food is no longer simply energy for our bodies. Food is communication; food is connection;
and food is power. The ways in which people produce, process, distribute, and consume
food are not only influenced by social change, but also influence these changes. Through
movements toward organic food, local food, or slow food we see great changes in the ways
that individuals are consuming food. This capstone project proposes the evolution of food
production, distribution, and consumption as a way to explore the community and cultural
change in the Rogue Valley.

Call them carts, food trucks, or roach coaches, over the past several years, there
has been a noticeable expansion of mobile food in Jackson and Josephine counties. While
food consumption is influenced by a myriad of factors including culture, policy, social class,
ethnicity, and consumer beliefs, people of a variety of backgrounds seem to be flocking to
these vibrant and flourishing new businesses. Having tried many of these businesses myself,
I am curious to explore the introduction of this movement to our area learning how and
why these businesses become a part of our community and local food scene. It is this
curiosity that drives this project to explore and provide a profile of Mobile Food Units in the
Rogue Valley.

PROJECT GOALS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This profile is used to answer several questions exploring Mobile Food Units and
their influence in the Rogue Valley. First, what is a Mobile Food Unit. Secondly, why have
food trucks and other alternative food stops become so popular? And finally, how do people
use food production and distribution as a medium to express and empower themselves?
Through these answers I explore how the movement toward Mobile Food Units plays a role
in community development more generally and in so doing reshape our local food culture
and consumption.

The goal of this ethnographic research project is to explore and document a variety
of perspectives by recording guided conversations with food truck stakeholders, including
owners, consumers, and proponents of local food. By capturing these narratives through
video ethnography, I provide a glimpse into what alternative Mobile Food Units contribute
to the Rogue Valley food system as a whole.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Growth of the Mobile Food Phenomenon
In recent years the growth of the mobile food phenomenon and changes in attitudes
toward street food have spurred an increase in social research and case studies exploring why
these mobile units have emerged, who is opening them, and how they have impacted cities,
restaurants, and groaning stomachs (Bhimji, 2014; Choi, 2013; Hernandez-Lopez, 2016;
Loomis, 2013; Martin, 2014; Moe, 2015; Newman, 2013; Sims, 2009; Strand, 2015; Wessel,
2012; Wynn, 2014). The literature on Mobile Food Units explores not only clearly
gastronomic changes but also begins to document how Mobile Food Units are addressing
economic pressures, ethnic influences, racial prejudices, class stratifications, trends, and
affecting social change as reflected in the diverse population of people distributing food
foods through brightly painted trucks, trailers, and even bicycles.
Definitions
For the purpose of this research and according to Oregon Administrative Rules, a
Mobile Food Unit is defined as any vehicle that is self-propelled, or which can be pushed or
pulled down a sidewalk street or highway, on which food is prepared, processed or
converted, or which is used in selling and dispensing food to the ultimate consumer (OAR
333-162-0000 (31)). This definition is widely recognized across county and state boundaries.
Examples of Mobile Food Units include but are not limited to: hot dog carts, full service
food trucks, mobile food pantries and some coffee stands. The literature review is focused
primarily on full service food trucks and mobile food pantries.
History of Mobile Food Units
This is not a new idea, however. Under this definition, Mobile Food Units have been
cooking, serving, and feeding for over 150 years. The introduction of mobile food quickly
followed the mobile human. As wagon trains roamed far and wide, mobile food units
emerged as a natural solution to the new human requirements: move, eat, gather, and share
(Moe, 2015). Since the chuck wagon days, these mobile food units have transformed
drastically continuing to be places of heightened accessibility, convenience, and efficiency.
While convenience may have driven American street food from a gathering wagon and
toward its trucks the transformation of Mobile Food Units is not complete. With new trends
in food and consumer demands, Mobile Food Units again are rapidly transforming and
adapting to engage, interact, and even reflect societal changes.

Street food has historically been an important and recognized aspect of many
cultures around the world. Yet influences from a past expression of social, economic, or
racial prejudices kept the United States to only recently, truly begun to accept mobile food
vendors as legitimate contributors to our nations nourishment (Wynn, 2014). Whether critics
would like to admit it or not, the introduction of Mobile Food has begun to change not only
the food but also the social scene surrounding food. The legitimization; urbanization;
importance of convenience; need for social, cultural, and economic adaptation/expression;
and trends in food consumption have all contributed to the spread and expansion of Mobile
Food Units across the globe (Wessel, 2012). This growth has not been slow or dull, but has
been rapid and exciting. Often characterized by their great diversity, Mobile Food Units
cannot be expected to have emerged for the same particular reason. Because of this a unique
and dynamic Mobile Food landscape emerges in each city reflecting the citys people,
changes, growth, perspectives, and ideas: particularly surrounding food.

Not only has the explosion of mobile food provided convenient and diverse food
for the consumer, but the innovation and creative growth of Mobile Food Units has allowed
owners and consumers to interact with and directly address social and economic problems
providing agency to diverse and historically disempowered groups of people (Strand, 2015).
The emergence of Mobile Food Units as they are today has been an innovation, once again,
out of necessity providing some economic security at the same time as sites for cultural
identity (Ekin, 2009). These benefits are shared among consumers, producers, and
distributors. First generation immigrants with few economic resources, little stability, and
little connection propelled the growth of the Mobile Food Movement. The ability to utilize a
low overhead truck to integrate foods into new places provided the agency that has allowed
previously marginalized individuals to interact and integrate within a changing culture
(Bhimji, 2014).

In cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Portland Mobile Food Units have worked
to combine these qualities into consumer driven, economically justifiable business models
providing a space for diverse growth all the while feeding the hungry bellies of Americas
working and creative classes (Strand, 2015). Just as we see food respond to trends in slow
food, and localism the Mobile Food Movement is reacting to modernization, the increasing
demand for equitable access to tasty urban experiences and revived valuation of diversity.
The transformation of street food from grab-n-go to gourmet gathering places has changed
attitudes toward Mobile Food Units; and across the nation entrepreneurs, lawmakers,
foodies, families, and consumers alike are beginning to see these brightly painted trucks as
much more than roach coaches (Newman, 2013).

Although there are some that are skeptical of Food Trucks asking whether they pose
threats to restaurants, gourmet dining, or even our health (Morabito, 2017), it is clear the
emergence of Mobile Food Units has brought agency to marginalized groups of people
allowing for a diverse growth of thriving small businesses emerging from various economic
and social situations eventually empowering urban spaces through the traditional lens of
food trucks. But Mobile Food Units have started to do more than impact immigrants,
lunchtime business-casually dressed folks, and working class consumers (Choi, 2013). Mobile
Food can do much more than employ a chef and feed a stomach.

Mobile Food Pantries have begun to utilize the mobility, social trends, and cost
effective models provided by food trucks to target food deserts and promote healthy,
affordable, and often even local goods. Going mobile makes food even more accessible and
breaks barriers between people and food (Strand, 2015). Following other mobile delivery
models for services, such as mobile dental clinics, libraries and blood donation centers, a
mobile farmers market [in Washington D.C.] provides a convenient alternative for urban
schools, bringing educational programs and fresh produce right to the
schoolyard (Ellsworth, 2015). Through mobile food pantries like this, mobile groceries, and
other innovative adaptations of this business model, it is proposed the Mobile Food Units
may have the potential to actively contribute to efforts made to provide food security and
sovereignty to people who may otherwise be food insecure (Angel, 2013; Hinrichs, 2000;
Wilson, 2015). If this potential is supported by local research, it should be asked how the
Mobile Food Phenomenon in the Rogue Valley may grow to more effectively influence
complex shifts toward sustainable and equitable local food consumption.

Just as chuck wagons provided nourishment and connection to cowboys in the west,
street food has proven to be much more than sweet, savory, or salty snacks (Wesel, 2012).
Mobile Food Units have become more than accepted and have become popular. They are
empowering people who have otherwise been disadvantaged to pursue a livelihood and to
pursue quality food. And while these Mobile Food Units act to empower individuals, they
also act within a community being influenced by and influencing the trends, growth, social,
economic, environmental, and ideological changes in the their area. Exploring the profiles of
Mobile Food Units in the Rogue Valley will provide an insight to the movements emergence,
ability to empower, effects within the community, and effectiveness at creating change.

METHODS
In order to explore the phenomenon of Mobile Food Units I have partnered with
the Rogue Valley Food System Network with the goal of further connecting local people
with local foods. Through the network built via this partnership and through convenience
sampling four primary Mobile Food Units were selected for research. This sample was
purposively selected to demonstrate the range and variety among Mobile Food Units
providing a glimpse of the situation in the Rogue Valley. The sample includes: Jose and
Lydia, owners of Joses Mexican Express, a mobile food unit that has been in operation for
nearly a decade; Christian, owner of Peruvian Point and emigrant from Peru; Yasem (aka the
sultan) proud father and owner of two family gyro trucks serving foods he learned to cook
in his fathers restaurant in Istanbul; and Kenzie and Andy, owners of Northwest Pine
Apple, a recently opened and trendy food truck that gained rapid popularity for their
emphasis on ingredient selection.

After multiple introductory site visits, conversations, and food tasting in order to
build trust each owner and other stakeholder in the Mobile Food Movement sample was
engaged in a face-to-face interview or guided conversation. These conversations were
designed to explore in depth the origins and realities of each Mobile Food Unit from the
perspective of the owner or stakeholder. These interview were used as foundations for the
exploration and analysis of emergent themes. Interviews varied in open-ended questions,
depth, time, and location; but each interview was recorded to collect video ethnographic
data. Combined with participatory observation, this data has been explored analyzed for the
most accurate representation of themes and narratives lived out among Rogue Valley Mobile
Food Units presented through Mobile Food Truck stakeholder expertise and intimate insight
allowing participants to describe their challenges, obstacles, and other experiences. These
videos explore the trends and have been coded for emergent themes including mobility,
agency, creativity, and the challenges of operating within local systems. Video ethnographic
data has been compiled and reconstructed for effective and accurate (each stakeholder has
been invited to approve their video) communication and dynamic visual representation of
stakeholders and the movement at large. The video has been compiled into one large
narrative and multiple short profiles for the use of participants and the Rogue Valley Food
System Network.

LIMITATIONS
As with all research, this project has been limited not only by researcher biases and
constraints, but also by timelines, methods, and scales. The sample of Mobile Food Units
selected for exploration is in no way assumed to be conclusive, but has been selected to be
somewhat regionally representative. Likewise, the subjects selected for research have been
selected to meet regional, timeline, language, and financial limitations related to
undergraduate research within Southern Oregon University. Finally, as exploratory research,
this project is limited and requires further research (excerpt from 2017)