Plant-based Food Truck Aims to ‘Raise Hell’ in the South
December 13, 2021Stephanie Kirkpatrick, 33, aims to show eating plant-based can be easy and tasty.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – There’s an expression that goes, “If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.” But at this food truck, things are not quite what they seem. Upon first glance, the food looks like your typical southern-fried chicken nugget and chicken sandwich. Even after the first bite you still may not be convinced, but rest assured, you’re eating a 100% plant-based seitan nugget.
Bartleby’s Seitan Stand is an entirely plant-based food truck, with a menu aimed to combine the joys of southern fried food, with the peace of mind that comes from plant-based eating.
Owner and operator of Bartleby’s Seitan Stand, Stephanie Kirkpatrick, first became interested in a plant-based diet while living in her home state of Florida. An avid scuba diver, Kirkpatrick says she saw first-hand what overfishing was doing to the reef systems and natural habitats.
“So, that’s what inspired me to give up eating fish first, then from there just kind of kept learning more about animal cruelty, the destruction of ecosystems, and just all the things that can happen from eating animals,” Kirkpatrick said, “So I slowly started cutting things out like eggs, then it was meat, then cheese I think was the last thing I gave up.”
From there, Kirkpatrick continued to search for alternative ways of healthy eating, but it wasn’t until she moved to Boston and began working in the service industry that she would find seitan.
“It was just my favorite food, I found it really versatile to work with and it really made me feel super full,” said Kirkpatrick.
Your eating habits while in the restaurant business can become kind of off due to constantly being at the mercy of a rush and the needs of the shop, so finding a food that was tasty and provided enough substance to fill her up was crucial, said Kirkpatrick.
“I was also just so interested in the fact that it’s a different way of cooking, there are so many variations and it has much more of a chew and versatile texture than tofu and some of the other options I was working with,” she said.
Seitan is the main protein from wheat, made by washing the wheat flour until all the starch has been removed, you’re left with a sticky mass that when cooked can resemble the texture of some meats.
Kirkpatrick learned how to make her seitan from a local vegan coffee shop she worked at in Boston, where they also made their seitan from scratch using a slow cooker. This discovery is what ultimately led Kirkpatrick to open Bartleby’s.
She started the truck in 2018 intending to share her seitan nuggets with the community.
“When I started Bartleby’s, I didn’t want people to just be like oh this is just vegan chicken made from a bunch of processed things that I don’t even know how to pronounce,” Kirkpatrick said. “This is literally something that has been used for thousands of years as a protein substitute.”
In 2019, Kirkpatrick and her husband, Brian Martin, decided to move to Arkansas to be closer to family, and get out of the city scene. She says that she was pleasantly surprised to find there was a relatively large plant-based community, or at least people were not completely opposed to the idea.
This doesn’t come too big of a surprise, considering a recent study by Statistica that found that in 2018, there was a 28% sales increase for plant-based meals, and a 24% increase in meat alternatives.
Shortly after relocating, COVID-19 took the world by storm, and Kirkpatrick, like many other small business owners, was in a tough spot.
“As soon as we moved here a week later was the nation-wide shutdown, so my partner and I were planning on getting an apartment, but instead ended up staying at our in-laws’ place for close to eight months,” Kirkpatrick said.
But the bigger issue was that Bartleby’s was now in a new city, and with everyone home on lockdown, getting the correct permits for the truck proved to be an impossible task.
“I ended up having to put the truck into storage, which actually kind of worked out since I paid the guy upfront for 8 months, I got a pretty good deal,”she said.
Despite living a nightmare scenario for most entrepreneurs, Kirkpatrick took it in stride and immediately went into expanding her wholesale efforts. She persistently emailed the Arkansas Food Innovation Center (AFIC) and eventually was able to land a spot.
Through AFIC, Kirkpatrick was able to redesign her packaging, as well as get more accurate nutritional labels made. Being able to up production through AFIC also allowed Kirkpatrick to send out more samples to retailers, something she said really helped support the business while the truck was out of commission.
“I had some savings to get the AFIC thing going, but that was financially straining,” She said. “I’d send out samples to the stores and they’d get back to me right away, then some stores would never respond and I wouldn’t hear from them for like 6 months… earning back that revenue took a lot longer than I thought it would,”
But Kirkpatrick says it paid off, with roughly 9 out of 10 stores responding and placing orders with her to carry her product.
“That’s a nice success rate and gives me a lot of confidence for 2022.”
