A food truck concession contract is the single most misunderstood deal in mobile food. Operators hear “stadium gig” or “school football games” and picture guaranteed crowds and easy money. Venues hear “food truck” and picture a cheap way to upgrade concessions without capital spend. Both sides are half right, and the gap between them is written into the contract language nobody reads until the season starts.
This guide pulls apart real 2026 procurement documents — a Michigan school district’s football concession RFP, a Washington city parks RFP, a Florida county’s mobile concessions agreement, a California community college food services contract, and a university’s own food truck template — and shows you exactly how the money is structured, what the venue keeps, what you keep, and where the margin quietly leaks out. Every figure below comes from a document you can open yourself. Where no figure is published, we say so instead of guessing.
What a food truck concession contract actually is
A food truck concession contract is an agreement that grants you the right to sell food at a venue you do not own, in exchange for money, on terms the venue sets. That is the whole thing. It is not a booking, not a catering job, and not a permit. Three things distinguish it:
- The venue gets paid out of your sales. Either a percentage or a fixed site fee. You are buying access to their crowd.
- The venue controls the menu and the prices. This surprises people every time. It is standard.
- The venue controls the schedule. You serve when they say, for as long as they say.
That last point is why a concession deal is not simply “a really good day of street service.” You are trading autonomy for footfall. Whether that trade works is a math question, and the math starts with how the split is structured.
The four ways venues get paid under a food truck concession contract
Across the documents we opened, venue compensation falls into four structures. Here is every published figure we could source, with links to the originals.
| Structure | Published figure | Source document |
|---|---|---|
| % of gross sales (county parks, mobile concessions) | 30% of all gross sales, paid quarterly | Friends of the County Parks (Hillsborough County, FL) mobile concessions agreement |
| % of gross revenue (city parks) | Minimum 10% of gross revenue; flat-fee alternative invited | City of Edmonds, WA — 2026 Concessions in City Parks RFP |
| % of sales, split by category (college food services) | 4.0% of gross student and staff sales; 12.0% of catering sales | Merced Community College District food services agreement |
| Flat monthly site fee (city parks, tiered) | $600 / $300 / $150 per month peak season, by park tier; $100 / $75 / $75 off-peak | Seattle Parks and Recreation seasonal concessions |
| % of gross profit (school district athletics) | No published figure — the vendor bids it | Plymouth-Canton Community Schools 2026 football concession RFP |
| No fee at all (university day vending) | $0 — “Vendor shall not be required to share its revenues” | University of South Alabama food truck services agreement (non-athletics) |
1. Percentage of gross sales
The most common structure and the most dangerous one. Hillsborough County’s mobile concessions agreement is blunt about it: “The Concessionaire shall pay Friends 30% of all gross sales.” Not 30% of profit. Not 30% of what’s left after food cost. Thirty percent off the top, paid quarterly on April 15, July 15, October 15 and January 15, with gross sales reported per site and per tournament alongside P&L statements.
Run that against normal food truck economics and you can see the problem immediately. If your food cost is 30% of a ticket and the venue takes another 30% of the same ticket, you have 40% of revenue left to cover labor, fuel, propane, commissary, insurance, repairs and yourself. It is doable at high volume with a tight menu. It is not doable with a nine-item menu and two staff standing idle between innings.
2. Percentage of gross profit
Plymouth-Canton Community Schools structures its football concession deal differently, and the distinction matters enormously. Their 2026 RFP states the vendor “will be required to pay the School District, on a monthly basis, a fee equal to an agreed upon percentage of the vendor’s gross profits.”
Gross profit, not gross sales. That means food cost comes off before the district’s cut is calculated. A 30% share of gross profit is a fundamentally cheaper deal than a 30% share of gross sales, and if you are comparing two food truck concession contract offers, this single word is worth more than any other term in the document.
Here is the part that catches people: the district does not publish the percentage. Appendix E of that RFP is a blank pricing form asking “the percentage (%) of gross profits that each vendor would offer as its ‘Sales Commission’,” with empty lines for the base term and both renewal years. You are bidding against other vendors on a number you have to compute yourself. There is no benchmark to copy. If someone quotes you a “standard school concession split,” ask them for the document.
3. Flat site fee
The cleanest structure for an operator, because your upside is uncapped. Seattle Parks and Recreation publishes its seasonal concession rates outright: Tier 1 parks are $600 per month in peak season and $100 per month from October through April. Tier 2 parks are $300 peak and $75 off-peak. Tier 3 parks are $150 peak and $75 off-peak. A permit can start as early as May 1, 2026 and cannot run past April 30, 2027.
The City of Edmonds, WA 2026 concessions RFP shows the hybrid: it anticipates “a percentage of the concession’s gross revenue, which is set at a minimum of ten percent (10%),” then asks proposers directly, “Or would you propose a flat fee?” If you have high average tickets, the flat fee is usually the better side of that question.
Seattle also flags something every operator should read twice: “Most locations do not have storage, water, or electricity available.” A flat fee looks cheap until you are running a generator for eight hours a day and hauling water.
4. No fee
It exists. The University of South Alabama’s food truck services agreement for non-athletics campus dates says plainly: “Vendor will be granted access to USA’s campus… without USA requiring Vendor to pay USA any fee. Vendor shall not be required to share its revenues with USA.” In exchange, the service window is capped at four hours, and the vendor carries every permit itself — business license, Mobile County Health Department food permits, safety equipment certifications.
Note that this is the non-athletics template. Athletics is handled under a separate agreement. That separation is the norm, and it tells you something: campus lunch vending and stadium concessions are different businesses with different paperwork.
What’s actually inside a food truck concession contract
Percentages get all the attention. The clauses below decide whether the deal is survivable. These are pulled from the Plymouth-Canton RFP and contract, which is unusually detailed and a good template for what to expect anywhere.
Exclusivity — and the carve-out that guts it
The awarded vendor gets “exclusive rights/obligations to operate the Concession Facilities during all home football games.” Good. But bottled drinks are carved out: vendors “must provide bottled drinks in conformity with the district’s provider (Pepsi products in 2026) which are excluded from the exclusive rights.”
Beverages are typically the highest-margin item on a concession menu. If the venue has a pouring-rights deal, your drink margin is set by someone else’s contract. Ask about beverage exclusivity before you model anything.
Menu and price approval
Menus and prices “must be submitted to the School District for written approval prior to any sales,” and prices must be “competitive with similar venues.” The district also mandates a minimum menu — pizza, hot dogs, nachos and pretzels all have to be on it. You cannot show up with a $17 birria plate and call it concessions.
Liquidated damages for a no-show
This one is specific and worth memorizing. If the vendor fails to perform for a scheduled football game and does not give at least 48 hours’ advance written notice, the vendor “shall be liable to the School District for liquidated damages in the amount of $500 per missed event.”
A blown transmission on a Friday afternoon is now a $500 problem on top of a lost night of revenue and a repair bill. Build a backup plan into your bid, not after.
Insurance
Public venues do not negotiate here. Plymouth-Canton requires commercial general liability of at least $1,000,000 for injury or death of one person and $2,000,000 for more than one person per occurrence, property damage of at least $1,000,000, products liability of at least $1,000,000 per occurrence, workers’ compensation at statutory limits plus employer’s liability of at least $500,000, and automobile liability covering owned, hired and non-owned vehicles at a $1,000,000 combined single limit.
Edmonds requires $1,000,000 per occurrence and a $2,000,000 general aggregate — plus a separate $2,000,000 products/completed operations aggregate specifically “for contractors that prepare food,” from an insurer rated no less than A VII. Hillsborough County requires $1,000,000 and names both the county and the nonprofit as additional insured.
If your current policy does not carry those limits, that is a real cost line in your bid, not a formality.
POS, reporting and audit rights
Every document we opened requires point-of-sale reporting, and most reserve audit rights. Plymouth-Canton wants gross sales by event date and location, the gross profit calculation, the accounting method used, and the payment amount due to each high school — and reserves the right to pull POS transaction summaries to verify what you reported, with records retained three years. Hillsborough County requires a county-approved POS “for all digital payments and cash payments.”
Cash-drawer operations do not win these contracts. If your books are a shoebox, fix that before you bid.
Background checks and experience minimums
All Plymouth-Canton vendor employees, contractors and agents get run through the Michigan State Police ICHAT criminal history tool before doing any work. The RFP also sets a minimum qualification of three years successfully operating and managing a concession stand, plus valid food service permits and food safety certifications for key personnel.
That experience floor is why year-one trucks rarely land district athletics work. It is not a conspiracy. It is a line in the RFP.
Before you bid on anything, know your real numbers
You cannot bid a percentage of gross profit if you do not know your gross profit. Our free Food Truck Starter Kit walks through the cost lines most operators miss — commissary, insurance, propane, card fees — so the number you write on a concession pricing form is one you can actually live with.
Where a food truck concession contract genuinely beats street service
The case for concessions is real, and it is not mainly about revenue. It is about variance.
The crowd is known in advance. A home football schedule is published months out. You know the date, the gate window and roughly the attendance. Street service is a weather forecast and a hope. Predictable volume lets you prep tighter, waste less and staff to demand instead of to fear.
The hours are fixed and short. The University of South Alabama template caps service at four hours. A football night is a similar burst. Concentrated service hours mean your labor is doing something the entire time it is on the clock, which is where a lot of street-service margin dies.
The permit roulette stops. Once the agreement is signed and your permits are on file, you are not re-negotiating a spot every week or getting moved by a code officer. Compare that to the ongoing patchwork of local rules covered in our guide to food truck permits and licenses.
Somebody else pays the overhead. This is the underrated one. Plymouth-Canton pays for all utility services — electric, gas and water — to each concession facility, provides pest control, and handles general and customary maintenance on district equipment. Seattle’s parks, by contrast, mostly have no power or water at all. Read that line in every deal, because it can swing your operating cost more than the split does.
Where the margin disappears
Now the other side of the ledger. These are the four leaks we saw written into real documents.
Idle dates
A concession agreement commits you to a calendar. Plymouth-Canton’s contract commences August 1, 2026 and runs for three football seasons through December 31, 2028, with the district holding sole discretion to renew for up to two more years. You are serving every home game — including the cold, wet, blowout Tuesday-feeling Friday with a quarter of the usual gate. Your average night is what matters, not your best night, and there is a $500 penalty for deciding a bad night isn’t worth showing up for.
Percentage applied to the wrong base
Already covered, but it is the biggest single swing in the whole category: gross sales versus gross profit versus gross revenue. Merced Community College District’s food services agreement adds a third wrinkle — it charges 4.0% on gross student and staff sales but 12.0% on catering sales, three times the rate, and the clause is “subject to re-negotiation at the end of each fiscal year.” Event and catering revenue is routinely priced higher by venues because they know it is more profitable for you.
Compliance cost you didn’t price
Insurance limits, background checks, a compliant POS, three years of retained records, a Florida DBPR license and an approved commissary agreement, quarterly P&L submissions. None of these are line items on a bid form and all of them cost money or time. Price them in.
Price control
You cannot raise prices to protect margin. Menus and prices need written approval, must stay “competitive with similar venues,” and under Hillsborough County’s agreement no price may change “without the County’s or Friends’ prior written consent.” If your food costs jump mid-season, you eat it until the venue agrees otherwise.
Schools specifically: the Smart Snacks rule most operators miss
If you are pursuing school work, there is one federal rule that decides what you are allowed to sell, and almost nobody in the food truck world talks about it.
Under the USDA’s Smart Snacks in School standards, “all foods sold at school during the school day are required to meet nutrition standards,” and the regulation “applies to foods sold a la carte, in the school store, vending machines, and any other venues where food is sold to students.” A food truck parked on campus at lunchtime is one of those other venues.
But — and this is the part that makes school athletics work viable — the USDA states directly that “the standards do not apply during nonschool hours, on weekends, and at off-campus fundraising events, though local policies may still apply.”
So the practical split is this:
- Friday night football, weekend tournaments, evening events: outside the school day. Smart Snacks does not bind your menu. Local wellness policy still might.
- Tuesday lunch service on campus: inside the school day. Every item you sell to students has to meet the federal standards.
That is why district concession RFPs can require pizza, hot dogs, nachos and pretzels without a compliance problem — those are night-game menus. Ask the athletic director or food service director, in writing, which side of that line your dates fall on. (One housekeeping note if you go looking for the rule: as of June 1, 2026 the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service is now the Food and Nutrition Administration, so older FNS links may redirect.)
How the bidding process actually runs
Public venues cannot just hire you. They have to run a procurement, and the timeline is longer than most operators expect. Plymouth-Canton’s published 2026 schedule is a fair model:
- RFP issued May 11
- Optional facilities walkthrough May 18
- Deadline for written clarification requests May 20; answers issued May 22
- Proposals due May 29 at 1:00 PM — sealed, then opened publicly and read aloud
- Evaluation the week of June 1, then finalist interviews, which “may include a tasting of the vendor’s proposed menu items”
- Contract commences August 1
Roughly eleven weeks from RFP to the first game, and the proposals are read aloud in public — meaning your competitors will know exactly what you bid. Seattle runs an entirely different rhythm: an online-only competitive application, with 2026 Round Two opening March 27, 2026, and the 2027–2028 process opening in early December 2026. “Emailed, mailed, and in-person application submissions will not be considered.”
Three practical takeaways. First, these are annual or multi-year cycles — miss the window and you wait a year. Second, walkthroughs and clarification deadlines exist for a reason; the walkthrough is where you find out there is no water hookup. Third, get on the venue’s bid notification list now, not when you are ready.
What we could not find a published figure for
Being straight about the gaps, because this topic attracts made-up benchmarks:
- A typical or average food truck concession contract split. No published national figure exists that we could source. The real range we did source runs from 0% to 30%, and the biggest school district document in this piece does not name a percentage at all because vendors bid it.
- Professional stadium splits. Major-venue concession RFPs ask proposers to fill in commission rates by category rather than publishing them. The one large-venue RFP we opened also required an annual minimum payment, a multi-million-dollar capital investment in the venue’s POS, and a performance bond — a structure built for national concessionaires, not single trucks. No current published percentage.
- Average per-head concession spend at high school or college venues. No published figure found. Ask the venue for prior-season gross sales; a district that wants competitive bids will usually share it, and Plymouth-Canton’s own reporting requirements prove they track it by event date.
If a number matters to your decision, request it from the venue in writing during the clarification window. That window exists precisely for this.
Is a food truck concession contract right for your truck?
A quick gut check before you spend two weeks on a proposal:
- Do you have the required insurance limits, or can you get them and afford them?
- Do you have a real POS with reporting, and clean books going back far enough to satisfy an audit clause?
- Do you have three years of relevant operating history, if the RFP asks for it?
- Can you cover every date on the calendar, including the bad ones, with a backup if the truck dies?
- Does your concept survive a mandated menu and venue-approved pricing?
- Do you know your true gross profit per item well enough to bid a percentage of it?
If you answered no to the last one, start there. The margin structure of your concept is the foundation of every concession bid, and it varies wildly — see our breakdown of which food truck concepts carry the strongest margins and our honest look at whether food trucks are actually profitable. To model a concession season against your own numbers, run it through the Food Truck Income Explorer before you write a percentage on a bid form.
This article is general information, not legal or financial advice. Concession agreements are binding contracts with real liability; have a qualified attorney review anything before you sign it, and confirm current terms with the venue.
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Startup cost checklists, the permit stack, and the real cost lines that decide whether a food truck concession contract is worth signing. Free, no fluff, built by someone who has launched real trucks.
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Food truck concession contract FAQ
What percentage do stadiums and schools take from food trucks?
There is no single standard. From the documents we opened: Hillsborough County’s parks agreement takes 30% of all gross sales, the City of Edmonds sets a minimum of 10% of gross revenue, Merced Community College takes 4.0% of student and staff sales and 12.0% of catering sales, and the University of South Alabama’s campus food truck template takes nothing. Plymouth-Canton Community Schools does not publish a rate at all — vendors bid their own percentage of gross profit.
Is a percentage of gross sales or gross profit better for the operator?
Gross profit, by a wide margin. A percentage of gross sales is taken off the top before your food cost. A percentage of gross profit is taken after food cost comes out. Same headline number, very different deal. Check which base the food truck concession contract uses before comparing offers.
Do food trucks need special insurance for concession work?
Usually higher limits than you carry for street service. Plymouth-Canton requires commercial general liability of at least $1,000,000 per person and $2,000,000 per occurrence plus $1,000,000 products liability; Edmonds requires $1,000,000 per occurrence, a $2,000,000 general aggregate and a separate $2,000,000 products/completed operations aggregate for food preparers; Hillsborough County requires $1,000,000 with the county named as additional insured.
Can a food truck sell anything it wants at a school?
No. Under USDA Smart Snacks standards, foods sold to students on campus during the school day must meet federal nutrition standards. The USDA states the standards do not apply during nonschool hours, on weekends, or at off-campus events — so evening athletics generally fall outside them — but local wellness policies may still apply, and districts routinely require written menu and price approval regardless.
How far in advance do venues award concession contracts?
Months. Plymouth-Canton issued its RFP May 11, 2026 for a contract commencing August 1, 2026 — about eleven weeks, and that was just the bid window. Seattle Parks opened its 2027–2028 concessions process in early December 2026. Get on the venue’s bid notification list well before the season you want to work.
What happens if a food truck misses a scheduled event?
Read the liquidated damages clause. Plymouth-Canton charges $500 per missed event if the vendor fails to perform without at least 48 hours’ advance written notice. Other agreements allow immediate termination for cause. A single mechanical failure can cost you the penalty, the night’s revenue and the contract.
Do venues let food trucks set their own prices?
Rarely. Plymouth-Canton requires written district approval of menus and prices before any sales and expects pricing “competitive with similar venues.” Hillsborough County’s agreement bars any price change without prior written consent and requires prices to be posted at every site. Assume your pricing is a negotiated term of the food truck concession contract, not a lever you control mid-season.
