UMD Student Launches Food Truck Tracking Website

DULUTH, Minn. — A UMD Engineering student isn’t waiting until graduation to put his knowledge to work. He’s already designed a website to help people track their favorite food truck in real-time.

Ian Frantz, 21, tells us he got the idea after he and his friends were getting frustrated never knowing where their favorite food trucks would be next.

Creator Ian Frantz

Armed with his coding background, Ian created FoodTruckTracker.org.  It pinpoints live locations on a map of local food trucks open and cooking, like Oh My Mini Donuts.

Ian says food truck owners like the idea, and that he’s tracking 16 trucks so far.

He says the project has been a labor of love.

“I have had so much valuable experience with connecting with food trucks but also a lot of practice with networking and that is incredibly important, especially for engineers to know people in the community and work with them and advertise their products with them,” said Ian Frantz, founder of the food truck website.

Ian is a double major at UMD and hopes to work in engineering after he graduates next year. He tells us the website is still in the development phase, so he’s not charging business owners right now. He hopes to create a revenue stream at some point down the road. If you’d like to check out the website, click here.