A food truck operated by Camosun students in the Professional Cook Level One certificate program has been operating for four weeks at Lansdowne and Interurban after a brief maintenance shutdown in early May.
The Camosun Cuisine Machine is a way to bring students together, says Camosun Culinary Arts chair David Lang.
“It gets them out in the community,” says Lang. “It’s a nice fresh change of pace for them… Especially during the pandemic, because we don’t have student interface right now in the cafeteria, it does give them an opportunity to be out in the community, still have a real experience, an interface with customers.”
With limited overhead costs in comparison to owning a restaurant, the food truck offers students experience in what is a really economical way to start a business.
“Food trucks are a huge outlet these days,” says Lang. “A new opportunity.”
Lang says that after food trucks became common in cities like Toronto, Portland, and Victoria, they became an important consideration for students in the culinary arts, given the present economic climate. However, Lang says that giving students a food-truck experience presented a set of challenges during the pandemic.
“Normally we’re out three to four days a week during the pandemic. Moving forward we’re going to continue to do… two days a week at [Vancouver Island Technology Park], as well as the Lansdowne campus, but we’re also going to re-engage with our partners [at] high schools and use the Cuisine Machine as a recruiting tool,” he says.
Lang says the food on the Cuisine Machine connects to Camosun’s international population: South Asian and South American food is served while “really trying to touch on a lot of the different cultures that the college community encompasses,” he says. Lang also says the Cuisine Machine offers a unique opportunity to train students on the intricacies of cooking in close quarters. Each student in the program rotates through the food truck on a two-week cycle as part of the Professional Cook program, which teaches them to operate in a very tight space.
“Similar to a ship, perhaps,” says Lang, “and it has its own unique challenges, like, ‘How do you transport deep fryer oil in a moving vehicle?’” he says. “They get the breadth of, ‘How do you operate the cooking side?’ certainly. The storage side, the operational side, and a little bit into the customer service side as well. It is a very unique opportunity.”
Be it catering, location serving, or product development, new opportunities for students—in terms of cooking and eating—are presented through the Cuisine Machine, says Lang.
“We have lots of success stories like Indecent Risotto, and Deadbeetz in Victoria,” he says. “It just gives them a really good experience.”
The Cuisine Machine will be at Vancouver Island Technology Park, near the Interurban campus, on Tuesdays from 11 am to 12:40 pm, and at the Lansdowne campus on Thursdays from 11 am to 12:40 pm.