Food Truck Fuel Cost Calculator

Food trucks burn fuel two ways that most cost estimates lump together but this calculator keeps separate: fuel to physically move the truck, and fuel to run the onboard generator that powers cooking equipment, refrigeration, and lights while parked. Driving cost is worked out from your daily round-trip miles divided by the truck's MPG to get gallons, times price per gallon. Generator cost works the same way from generator hours per day times its gallons-per-hour consumption rate. The two are added for total daily fuel cost and total daily gallons, then the daily figure is multiplied by operating days per month for a monthly total, and by 12 for an annual projection. Cost per mile takes total daily fuel — driving and generator combined — and divides by drive miles alone, so it deliberately folds the generator's cost into a per-mile figure useful for pricing catering events by travel distance.

Two defaults are worth understanding rather than accepting blindly. Truck MPG defaults to 8, which is realistic for a step van hauling a full kitchen build-out (typical range is 6-10 MPG, well below a comparable empty vehicle), so don't use your truck's spec-sheet fuel economy — use what you actually observe loaded. Generator consumption defaults to 0.75 gallons per hour, a mid-range figure for commercial units (0.5-1.5 GPH depending on load and generator size); running a full flat-top, fryer, and refrigeration simultaneously pushes toward the high end. Because this tool only models fuel, not maintenance, oil changes, or generator wear, treat its output as one line item in a larger operating budget — pair it with your revenue-per-hour figure to see what share of each service hour's earnings fuel alone is consuming.