- August 10, 2026
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When Josh Barth, 46, consistently found himself missing out when his favorite food trucks were near him, he didn’t just grumble and move on. He started a business.
That frustration with pop-up schedules became the inspiration of FoodTrukt, an app designed to connect customers with nearby food trucks.
“In the back of my mind I was like, ‘There's got to be a better way to do this,” Barth says.
Barth, the CFO, and Adam Ott, the CEO of FoodTrukt, both have software backgrounds. They both worked at Vertex, a corporate income tax software company, for 16 years, from 2005 to 2021. Barth had tested video game apps created by Ott and they soon decided to work together to create Foodtrukt.
They researched the competition and found a few current apps. But they weren’t impressed by the functionality. The main purposes of the app is for food truck owners to post their location and “go live,” which drops a precise pin of where they are selling their product. Food truck purveyors can also post their menus and schedules.
“You could be driving to drop your kid off at a soccer game, and there might be the best barbecue you've been wanting to try down the street,” Barth says. “If you follow them, you'll get a proximity alert.”
“Sometimes people say they are at the farmers market, but you don't know if they're over at this end or that end,” Ott adds. “It's good to see that green pin.”
Foodtrukt is free for consumers. For food truck owners, there are three versions of the subscription-based app: a free version, a $4.99 monthly subscription or a $14.99 monthly subscription. FoodTrukt can be found on the app store on Apple and Android devices, as well as on the web.
Amber Hanratty, owner of Dirty Sara-Soda, which launched in Lakewood Ranch in January, was one of the first food truck owners on the app. She discovered it when Barth sought her out after seeing Dirty Sara-Soda on social media.
“He told me their vision of what the app can offer the food truck community, and since I was so new in the business, I was all in,” Hanratty says.
Hanratty says being on FoodTrukt has definitely helped her business and she tells her customers about FoodTrukt often. She says a customer from Port Charlotte downloaded the app in order to locate her and come get some drinks.
Barth says they are trying to put a platform in the hands of local food truck owners that allows them to communicate. Besides the live notification, they can also send out messages to all of their followers about anything they want; it could be they are closing early, if they offer specials or any other beneficial information.
He says it is not a replacement for social media. They still encourage individual food trucks to have an active social media presence. However, social media isn’t everyone’s specialty.
“This is an addition to dovetail what they're already doing,” Barth says.
Danielle Hansen, owner of Zogi’s Shaved Ice & Lemonade in Lakewood Ranch, says she has looked into using other food truck apps in the past but believes FoodTrukt stands out with how well it represents the local area.
She says as food truck owners, you only want to invest time in updating an app — posting schedules, menus, photos — if it will truly connect you with the community.
“What we've seen so far is that local vendors have collectively gotten behind FoodTrukt, and that makes it worth the investment,” Hansen says. “We genuinely believe it's helping customers find local food trucks and helping food trucks stay connected to the Lakewood Ranch community.”
Although FoodTrukt was created with the Lakewood Ranch and Sarasota-Bradenton market in mind, it has already been used in nine states solely by word of mouth. The FoodTrukt team received a message from a food truck owner in Utah on a location/ZIP code-related issue before they even knew it was outside of the Florida market.
That's partially why Barth describes FoodTrukt as “a passion project that's starting to bloom too much bigger." It's also why he and Ott knew they needed to bring in more help. So they brought in Gabby Collazo, Karlie Becker and Cassandra Nacioneles to make up the marketing team.
“I see the potential for us to absolutely go nuclear nationwide,” Barth says. “It only takes one viral moment, and that's why we're staffing up to help with the flood.”
A version of this article originally appeared on sister site YourObserver.com.
