Why Does ConAgra Own A Trendy L.A. Food Truck?

ConAgra is one of the biggest packaged-food sellers in America, ranging from processed meats to non-dairy dairy-like items to cooking sprays to frozen meals. If you’ve spent more than a year in this country, you’ve eaten a ConAgra food product. Plenty of words come to mind when you think of ConAgra, some good, some bad, but one that’s unlikely to make that list would be “trendy.” And yet TakePart’s Willy Blackmore discovered that a newcomer to the Los Angeles food truck scene, a truck called Wicked Kitchen, is actually owned by ConAgra. What the hell?

Wicked Kitchen is an exceedingly Los Angeles food truck; its cuisine is global, with the current menu boasting classic dishes from Italy, Mexico, Korea, and Morocco. The dishes aren’t particularly inventive — there’s nothing new about Korean fried chicken with gochujang, or enchiladas with guajillo sauce — but they all boast names like “Don’t Lose Your Tempura” and “I Pity The Tofu’l.” Chef Justin Campbell, formerly a private chef, heads the kitchen, which has been seen at nearly every event a food truck could conceivably be seen at since the truck’s launch in 2012: the LA Street Food Fest, the E3 videogame conference in Las Vegas, the Coachella music festival, SXSW in Austin, and more. All this for a two-year-old truck with middling Yelp reviews.

That’s because the truck is owned, entirely, by ConAgra. I contacted Wicked Kitchen to find out how and why ConAgra got into the food truck business, and got this response: “The inspiration behind the truck actually came in the form of a few foodies from ConAgra Foods who were just very into the food truck scene, traveling around and tasting the unique flavors and combinations that are so typical of this experience.”

Essentially, ConAgra realized food trucks are trendy, and contacted Roaming Hunger, a sort of food truck directory and marketing firm run by a guy named Ross Resnick. ConAgra and Roaming Hunger collaborated on Wicked Kitchen. Says Ryan Carlin of Wicked Kitchen: “ConAgra Foods owns the truck and operates with its resources. Roaming Hunger and its chefs operate and manage the entire experience on-the-ground ”“ the prep, cooking, service ”“ you name it.”

The inspiration behind the truck actually came in the form of a few foodies from ConAgra Foods

But why does ConAgra want to operate a food truck, a business with razor-thin margins? And why does Roaming Hunger, an independent-minded organization, want to hook up with a massive conglomerate like ConAgra? I asked Carlin if Wicked Kitchen was using ConAgra foods, and he said they aren’t. “The Wicked Kitchen food truck operates like any gourmet food truck in LA. All ingredients are bought locally in LA,” he wrote in an email. “We look for the ingredients that we need; we don’t intentionally purchase ConAgra products.” So what’s ConAgra doing with a food truck? “ConAgra uses the Wicked Kitchen truck as a test kitchen to better understand the world of street food – what ingredients, flavors and experiences are driving food trends today,” Carlin writes.

Why ConAgra wants to understand the world of street food is still a bit of a mystery, but perhaps they’ve got an eye to shipping frozen “Don’t Lose Your Tempura” chicken meals sometime in the future. In the meantime, diners at Wicked Kitchen vary from pleased to disappointed by the food, but it seems like the ConAgra connection isn’t a total secret. “You don’t realize the corporate food giant ConAgra is behind this “little” food truck until you do a little bit of research on the internet and find out you’ve been duped!” writes Yelper Jason E. “Stay away! It’s corporate food giant ConAgra trying to take a bit into the food truck market!”

(Image courtesy Wicked Kitchen)