Bunge oil experts hit road in food truck

June 2, 2010 – Visit any major city today and you are as likely to dine on the sidewalk as in an elegant bistro if you are a city dweller. The high cost of real estate in big cities has driven thousands of aspiring restaurateurs to start up their eatery on wheels.

June 2, 2010 – Visit
any major city today and you are as likely to dine on the sidewalk as
in an elegant bistro if you are a city dweller. The high cost of real
estate in big cities has driven thousands of aspiring restaurateurs to
start up their eatery on wheels.

A Tennessee advertising, marketing and public relation firm is the first to spark the trend for a food manufacturer.

“Bunge is an edible oils food manufacturer and we were looking for a unique way to deliver our message that foods baked and fried in healthier cooking oils can still taste great. Our food truck, nicknamed MOE (Mobile Oil Experts), gives us a unique way to deliver great-tasting street food at key customer events around the country. We can now bring Bunge to our customers’ doorstep,” explains Bunge marketing director Bill McCullough.

Bunge has a major presence in Canada with processing facilities in several provinces and administrative offices in Oakville, Ont.

The inspiration for MOE came at a meeting of top chefs at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Napa, Calif., last year.

“Kogi, a mobile Korean food operation in Los Angeles, held a delicious mobile food demonstration at the event and the idea for MOE was born,” said Creative Energy director of new business Forrest Rogers.
“We purchased a used Mac Tools delivery truck at an auto auction and work began. We have rebuilt the truck to be a fully operational kitchen that can feed 1,200 people."

The firm selected Essyx Exhibits and Displays of Johnson City to do the build out. The 18-foot truck has been converted to bio-diesel and utilizes used cooking oil to partially fuel the engine. It boasts a brand new kitchen featuring a custom Frymaster Protector 60-gallon deep fryer. Chef Adam Moore, a Bunge Oils corporate chef from Chicago, will be behind the wheel of big MOE as it travels to major food shows and restaurant chain franchisee meetings across the United States.

MOE’s debut fed 350 people in late April at the annual Steak ‘n Shake/Western Sizzlin franchisee meeting in Indianapolis. The next day, MOE invited 1,200 Dow AgroSciences employees at their Indianapolis agribusiness campus to try products ranging from veggie wontons to Oreos fried in Bunge’s zero grams trans fat Nutra-Clear NT, an Omega-9 canola oil.

During the National Restaurant Show in Chicago, MOE led a tailgate party outside US Cellular Park just before a Chicago White Sox MLB game.

“Creative Energy is helping to set new standards for marketing and Bunge’s MOE is a great example,” said the company’s president, Tony Treadway. “While our client’s competitors are confined to a trade show booth with thousands of other food manufacturers, MOE will be on the streets of Chicago cooking up their very best for their target customers during the most important industry event of the year.”