For your assignment, you need to research, Sweet as Waffles. Sweet as Waffles is opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant after starting as a food truck.
When researching restaurants, it's important to be aware of both the type of restaurant and the type of customer. When looking for industry and competitor information, it is often broken down the type of service is offered: counter service, grad-and-go, sit-down, fast-food, delivery, etc. as well as the type of food offered. Food trucks don't always fit into the more traditional restaurant industry definitions of traditional restaurants, but they are still competitors.
NAICS (North American Industrial Classification System) codes can be a good way to wort out the type of restaurant, as they are separate classifications for different types of restaurants.
The image below give you a sampling of restaurant types defined by NAICS. Notice there are two different numbers: 722511 (Full Service Restaurants) and 722513 (Limited Service Restaurants). This means there are two different definitions.
Finding Articles
Use Business Source Complete and Academic Search Complete to find articles--including trade journal and academic articles--about food trucks and restaurants.
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Industry Information
IBISWorld has industry reports on thousands of industries, including different types of restaurants, organized by NAICS code. They also create reports for specialized industries, like Food Trucks. You can also search by (major) company names or by the type of business.
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Tip: Mergent provides info on larger private US and international companies, both active and inactive, including general company info in addition to SEC filings, reports, insider trading details, current and historical financial info going back 15 years, and more. This database is useful for locating competitors by industry and creating custom company reports. Info can be downloaded into Excel and other formats.
Tip: Use Dossier to find information on local small businesses.
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