Small business: Surrey company builds kitchens on the go

SURREY — In a sprawling warehouse in an industrial area in Surrey sits a shiny steel food cart covered with a cheeky red awning.

It stands out like a rose in the desert.

The design of the cart is like a jigsaw puzzle with compartments containing fridges, a tiny sink, oven and other essentials. It is a miniature kitchen on wheels. Every square inch has a purpose.

Once the finishing touches are in place, it will be shipped to New York City where a chef in the Big Apple will use it to churn out waffles.

This is only one of several projects underway at Apollo Custom Manufacturing, a bustling workplace littered with strays from the road like retired delivery trucks, an ex-police SWAT team truck, a hollowed out motor home, an old postal van and a shipping container. The battered interiors are all in some stage of finding a new vocation as one of the trendy food carts, trailers or trucks that are increasingly populating urban streets.

As business has boomed for street food vendors, so it has for Norm Kerfoot who founded the company in 2000 with business partner Vince White.

Since then, they have shipped mobile kitchens around the world, landing food carts in Australia, Hawaii, the Netherlands, Germany, England, France, Italy and through the U.S. and Canada.

By now, “we have a good grasp of the flow of these trucks,” said Kerfoot, who seems to have the right combination of practical, hands-on skills and a knack for sales for this unusual business.

He estimates there are probably 1,000 Apollo-made carts, close to 100 trucks and maybe 50 trailers used around the world by street food vendors.

Success has been a long time coming. In the company’s early years, he and White used to work long hours, rolling up their sleeves to do much of the labour themselves.

“It has been a pretty crazy business to be involved in, just with all the ups and downs over the years,” he said in an interview in his office, surrounded by the buzz of electric saws and the tinny smell of freshly cut metal.

The business exploded about four years ago when the city of Vancouver opened the door to an invasion of food trucks, carts and trailers. Before that, the company had an annual sales volume of around $750,000. Today, that figure has nearly doubled to $1.4 million. Kerfoot expects it to climb even higher.

Having already shipped plenty of product to other countries, Apollo was well positioned to fill this new niche in Vancouver.

Kerfoot knows the challenges in creating these cubbyhole kitchens. They need to be self-sufficient, running entirely on propane and generator power, having their own refrigeration, hot and cold running water and meeting the same health and safety standards as a restaurant.

Judging by the array of photos behind him as he sits at his desk, his company seems to have converted just about every type of vehicle under the sun.

For example, they converted a Volkswagen van into a sizzling pink concession stand called Pig on the Street. Inside, a husband and wife team turn out anything bacon on downtown Vancouver streets.

“It was a lot of planning because there isn’t a lot of room inside,” said Kerfoot. He is proud of the result. “The top pops up and they’ve got a complete kitchen in there. It’s a fabulous little unit.”