City food and drink truck operators will appear before Adelaide City Council this evening to make their case against changes to the mobile food vendor program.

It comes a week after a council administration report concluded mobile vendors were making an average of just $424 per day, and generating 0.15 per cent of total market revenue in the CBD.

Tony Brownbill, who runs the Coffee Cow mobile business in the city, will argue that vendors such as himself are struggling to earn enough revenue to break even, and that fee increases could see several of them shut down.

“I struggle with the fees as it is. I know that there are a number of other food trucks that do as well,” Brownbill told InDaily.

“Any sort of fee hike would possibly sever the whole program.

“There’s no way in the world that I could survive just on the mobile business.

“I’ve always have to complement (my income).

“Nobody in their right mind would want to be just working full time as a mobile food vendor on the street.”

Times are tough for fixed and mobile businesses in Adelaide’s CBD. Photo: Nat Rogers/InDaily

The mobile food vendor program was established in 2012 as part of Adelaide City Council’s vibrancy program Splash Adelaide.

It allows up to 40 food or drink vendors to set up on some city streets and footpaths for a fee of around $600 in the six-month ‘winter period’ and $1,000 in the six-month ‘summer period’. Alternatively, vendors can apply for 10-day permits.

Brownbill, who opened his mobile business when the program began, said dramatically reduced coffee sales last summer meant he had to drive Uber cars to make ends meet.

He said over the two years he has operated Coffee Cow, he has earnt about $50,000 in revenue.

He said he had little sympathy for fixed ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses unhappy about the increased competition from food trucks, because they also have the opportunity to operate mobile businesses.

Deputy Lord Mayor Houssam Abiad and some fixed business operators have argued for increased council fees for mobile vendors and more restrictions on where they can operate.

They argue the lower costs borne by mobile vendors in the city, compared with fixed location businesses, can constitute unfair competition.

Abiad told InDaily the council fee structure should be based on the current level of activation of a particular area of the city, rather than a flat fee.

“In some of the non-activated areas in the city we want to see active, (fees) could come as close as being nil,” he said.

“(But) in some areas that are already activated, like Hindmarsh Square, I think the model needs to be increased.”

He said he would like to see mobile operators given two years of relatively low council fees, but higher fees thereafter.

“Once they decide this is the type of business they want to operate in, I really think the fees should increase,” Abiad said.

“It’s about bringing about a bit of balance and … not disadvantaging brick and mortar businesses.

“It is tough times and we need to manage this in our city.

“We’re definitely oversupplying for a demand that’s not currently increasing.”

He said the council should encourage more partnerships between mobile and fixed businesses which could compliment each other in the city, and encourage fixed businesses to open their own mobile operations in addition to their fixed businesses.

He said that in the surrent economic conditions, “even a low impact” on fixed-business revenue because food food truck competition could pose a serious risk to those businesses.

However, area councillor Robert Simms said he feared changing the fee structure risked drawing a “wet blanket” over innovative new businesses.

“What I’d hate to see happen is council start tinkering with the fee regime and then for that to have a chilling effect and that to then to kill off the whole sector,” he said.

He said mobile vendors were responding to changes in consumer tastes, and that should be encouraged.

“I don’t think we should be punishing businesses for doing that, I think we should be rewarding businesses for doing that,” Simms said.

“There’s no doubt that bricks and mortar businesses are facing pressure

“But it doesn’t follow … that food trucks are to blame for that.

“We’ve made some really great gains in this city in the past couple of years and I don’t want us turning back the clock.”

Both Abiad and Simms said they supported fixed and mobile businesses in the CBD, and that the key was to find the best way for them to coexist.

Image: Nat Rogers/InDaily