Friends Martin Kracheel and Mikkel Strorup (pictured) had the idea to set up appetite.lu in 2016 with two other friends Maison Moderne

Friends Martin Kracheel and Mikkel Strorup (pictured) had the idea to set up appetite.lu in 2016 with two other friends Maison Moderne

A group of four friends will at the end of June roll out Luxembourg’s first food truck app, appEtite, enabling potential customers to find food trucks near them. Dubbed the “Airbnb of food trucks”, the app was conceived by friends Mikkel Strorup, Martin Kracheel, Thierry Derrmann and Walter Bronzi in the summer of 2016.

“We love food and one time we were out and said ‘wouldn’t it be great to eat from a food truck’. But there was no food truck around and we realised there was no single app,” Strorup told Delano. The four foodies met with food truck owners and saw the niche for a booking system as well as a centralised place to find food trucks.

They began building the app and now over 20 food truckers have signed up to be included in the first version.

The first phase of the app will be an interactive map enabling customers to find a food truck within a certain distance of where they are.

“It works the same as the Uber app. Food trucks check in when they are where they are supposed to be. This way, we can present verified information to the user so he will always have the best experience,” said Kracheel.

Photo: Appetite.lu

Strorup added: “What we don’t want is for someone to show up looking forward to a jalapeno burger and find the truck is not there.”

Other tools will be added in later steps, including a booking system for events and online order and payment systems.

“The feedback we are seeing from food trucks and crowds is that this is exactly what they need,” Strorup said, adding that the tool can help the industry to develop further.

“When food trucks have an application they can do loyalty systems, promotions and they can have data about customers: how far they travelled, where are the strategic points to put them next. Today it’s all about big data."

Strorup has an entrepreneurial background, having established Chinese-Luxembourg business chamber ChinaLux.

But, this is the first business venture the four have embarked on together.

And, while they would like to expand the project beyond Luxembourg’s borders and generate revenue streams from advertising, they stress friendship comes first in the endeavour.

The entrepreneurs will officially launch appEtite at a food truck event in Dudelange town centre on 25 June at 5pm. To find out more, visit appEtite.