Food trucks and food parks as a social innovation of eating out practice: A study in Joao Pessoa - Brazil

Food trucks are giving new meaning to what it means to "eat out." The exponential growth in the popularity of food trucks and the transformation that this segment of the market has been undergoing compared to traditional means of selling food on the street shows a process of innovation in the way that food is produced and consumed. This study aims to understand the practice of eating out (street food) as a social innovation with the advent of food trucks in Brazil and to approximate organization studies to food studies. We conducted a qualitative research with food trucks entrepreneurs, consumers, and members of public authorities in the city of Joao Pessoa (Brazil) from July 2016 to January 2017 and used a practice-based perspective to interpret data. We identified five innovations (changes) presented by food trucks in the eating out practice (gourmetization, vehicle customization, the use of social media to communicate with customers, specific forms of food trucks management, and the way of using the spaces). The principal limitation of our study is the lack of discussion on power relations in the eating out practice. Our study originality lies at the understanding eating out street food as a social innovation and the articulation between food studies and organization studies.