AD – This is part of a paid partnership with Indi Local.
Street food has always been a big part of Sophie etc. and Eat & Explore MK. Going to events and posting about the food I ate formed a big part of my growth as a local foodie. Events like Eat Street MK and Bite Street have continued to give independent food trucks space to build a community of food lovers.
Letting people know where to find their favourite food trucks has always been a challenge. Often, I would post on Instagram about a tasty dish and my followers would ask how I found out about them. The answer was nearly always social media, but only some vendors posted frequently about where they were.
What if I told you that there was a brand new app that solves all of those problems?
Indi Local is an app to help you find local street food trucks and pop-up events near you. Founded by 32-year-old Vanessa Anderson, born and raised in Milton Keynes, Indi Local connects food trucks to foodies. It’s the first app of its kind and I am so excited to share this with you.
I caught up with Vanessa to discover more about the app and how traders and foodies can get involved.
What is Indi Local?
Indi Local is an app connecting street food trucks and local events, to foodies nearby, giving small businesses better visibility in their local communities and helping to put money back into local pockets by making it easier than ever to support local businesses.
It’s a map-based app that when opened, is centred on your current location showing you any food trucks or pop-up events nearby, happening right now! You can also scroll through a calendar to see what’s happening on different days of the week, filter, save and share your favourite events with friends.
So next time you are hungry, you can open the app and find food trucks near you!
Indi Local is an app connecting street food trucks and local events, to foodies nearby, giving small businesses better visibility in their local communities and helping to put money back into local pockets by making it easier than ever to support local businesses.
– Indi Local
The story behind Indi
Finding food trucks was a problem that Vanessa didn’t realise until a day when she felt lazy, couldn’t be bothered to cook and ended up at a drive-thru chain.
“Joe [my boyfriend] and I decided to take our food to a local park to at least make a date night of it and it was there that we stumbled across a street food truck selling freshly made wood-fired pizzas! I was kicking myself as I would have preferred to buy from the lovely vendor selling them had I known he was there.”
“I realised that this was not the first time I’ve stumbled across a food truck by accident, and when I thought about how you’d ever know where they would pop up next, I was stumped! You can’t really “Google” where they are, and if you tried finding them on social media you’d need to know who you’re looking for and hope that they are regularly posting their movements, if anything at all. With a background in software development and no existing solution to the problem, I decided I would do something about it.”
What’s in it for food trucks?
First and foremost, it’s a place to upload your pop-up schedules so hungry foodies know where to find you. It integrates with your Google Calendar (or indirectly with iOS calendar), so you don’t need to maintain two diaries.
It is hard to cut through the noise of social media to reach new customers. On Indi Local there are no algorithms to navigate, just better exposure to new local audiences who are looking for nearby businesses like yours.
Finally, foodies are incentivised to visit you as we’re offering them the ability to check in to redeem points and rewards, helping you earn repeat business and build a following of fans.
Street food favourites like The Rub, Fashion Bake and Rodeos BBQ are already on the app – but there’s always room for more!
And what’s in it for foodies?
For those days when you are too tired to cook, or you and your pals fancy finding something spontaneous to do whilst the sun is out – you can open up Indi and find a street food truck parked up just a few streets away, or a food festival happening at the weekend.
It’s as easy as opening the app and scrolling around the map to see what trucks are about. You can also collect points for referring friends, checking in with vendors and more, and collect enough points to redeem rewards such as discounts or even free food.
“You can’t really “Google” where [street food vendors] are, and if you tried finding them on social media you’d need to know who you’re looking for and hope that they are regularly posting their movements, if anything at all. With a background in software development and no existing solution to the problem, I decided I would do something about it.”
Vanessa Anderson, founder of Indi Local
Currently, the app features street food vendors in Milton Keynes and Northamptonshire such as The Rub BBQ, We Will Wok You, Cookie Babes, Pizza Roo, Rodeo’s BBQ and more.
You will also find two of my events listed on the app – Midsummer Festival in June and Sophie’s Street Feast in September!
So, what are you waiting for? Download Indi Local and start discovering a summer of street food!
Download Indi Local
Indi Local is currently available on the App Store (iOS) and Android.
DISCLAIMER: This post is part of a paid content campaign. Click here for my full disclosure policy.
