Texas food truck operators now need a statewide license from the Texas Department of State Health Services instead of separate licenses from each local health department where they operate.<\/p>\n
The change took effect July 1 under House Bill 2844 and creates a new statewide licensing system for mobile food vehicles.<\/p>\n
According to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, mobile food vehicles will be assigned a license type based on their food preparation activities.<\/p>\n
After the agency processes the application, the operator of the food truck will be contacted to schedule a pre-licensing inspection.<\/p>\n
There are two categories for applicants seeking initial licensing and inspection.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you have an existing mobile food unit or mobile food vendor license from a local health department in Texas, you can keep operating if you:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Per DSHS, if you do not have a current license anywhere in\u00a0Texas, you cannot operate until the pre-licensing inspection is completed. The agency will prioritize your application. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Once the pre-licensing inspection is successfully completed, you will be granted a\u00a0DSHS mobile food vehicle license that expires one year from the date of the completed pre-licensing inspection.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, a food vending vehicle is a self-enclosed food service establishment (including catering trucks, trailers, and roadside vendors) or pushcart that operates to store, prepare, display, serve, or sell food as a food service establishment, and is designed to be readily movable.<\/p>\n
A food vending vehicle may be self- or otherwise-propelled or vehicle-mounted. A food vending vehicle does not count as a food stand or a booth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here are the license categories for mobile food vehicles:\u00a0<\/p>\n
For vendors that don\u2019t sell time and temperature control for safety (TCS) foods and are considered low risk.<\/p>\n
Examples: Prepackaged ice cream vendors and prepackaged snack vendors\u00a0<\/p>\n
For vendors that sell prepackaged TCS foods or prepare food to order for immediate consumption. Food preparation may include cold holding, thawing or reheating commercially prepared products.<\/p>\n
Examples: Coffee trucks, snow cone vendors, hot dog vendors\u00a0<\/p>\n
For vendors that prepare, cook, hold and serve food. Food preparation may include cooking, cooling, reheating, hot holding or cold holding.<\/p>\n
Examples: Burger trucks, barbecue trucks, taco trucks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas food truck operators now need a statewide license from the Texas Department of State Health Services instead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-362462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}