[Work in Progress - Live Updates added as received]

Welcome to Marupo's Food Truck Fundraiser.

Roadblocks for a Small Asian-Immigrant Owned Business...

Bennett Lai, one of our board members and founders has been running his small food establishment business Marupo Eats for over 2 years, primarily selling at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market and Eastern Market.

During this time, he became aware of 3 major roadblocks to his business's long term growth. Those being:

Reliable 24/7 Access to a Commercial Kitchen, as opposed to sharing commissary kitchens
Ability to sell more frequently outside of Saturday Farmers Market
Being able to cook freshly made food on-site at venues/pop-ups, to expand product offerings

Throughout 2023, Bennett sought a physical brick & mortar location to grow Marupo Eats, while staying in constant communication with other local food entrepreneurs in case there were opportunities to collaborate (and split the cost)

A potential path forward - Food Truck through MDARD Grant

By October... we became aware of an opportunity for a grant through MDARD, namely the:

Underserved, Value-Added, and Regional Food Systems Grant

If rewarded as a grantee, Marupo could potentially receive up to $100k to use towards the purchase of a food truck!

While not exactly a brick and mortar location... it does check the boxes in addressing all 3 of the roadblocks mentioned above.

So with that... Bennett started looking for quotes on the cost of a food truck and received a quote (approx. $140k) as well as lay out from a prospective builder.

The only caveat is this grant required a 30% match from the awardee for the grant amount received. Meaning if Marupo was rewarded $100k in grant funds, it would have to contribute $30k towards this project as well (thus this fundraiser 😀 )

Thinking BEYOND just one business, but for the Asian Food community overall

After contemplating what this food truck could do for Marupo Eats, Bennett considered other avenues for this new asset to be used not just for his own personal business, but for others facing similar struggles as well.

After all, the roadblocks Marupo Eats faces is quite common for most food businesses... rather than making this a boon exclusive to Eats, why not make it accessible for others to use too?

Not only would this delight customers with a greater variety of food offerings from a "single food truck", it could also be financially efficient with more tenants splitting upkeep costs like insurance/maintenance.

From an employee's perspective, having multiple tenants, each with their own pop-up events "share" a sales staff also provides more hours and creates stable job opportunities for full timers.

With these thoughts in mind, Bennett brought this idea to the Marupo ACTS board... which leads us to where we are now.

Related Attachments for additional context

Exhibit A: Quote from JP Food Trucks for cost of buildout/truck

Food Truck Quote

Exhibit B: Tentative Layout of the Food Truck

[Pending] Exhibit C: Letter of Support from Deb Lentz and Richard Andres (Owners of the Washtenaw Food Hub)

[Pending] Exhibit D: Letter of Support from Stefanie Stauffer (Market Manager of the Ann Arbor Farmers Market)

[Pending] Exhibit E: Letter of Support from Lonni Thomas (Market Manager of Detroit Eastern Market)

[Pending] Exhibit F: Letter of Support from Avazeh Attari (Director of High er Education Partnership, MEDC)

Marupo's Communal Food Truck Fundraiser

By Marupo ACTS (Asian Culinary and Traditions Society)

Marupo's Communal Food Truck Fundraiser

Mobile Kitchen: Share-able by AAPI small business!

Team Members