Lifelong Love of Soup Inspires New Food Truck

A childhood love of soup has grown into a new business venture for Inchelium teacher and Chewelah resident Mary Ludwig, who is preparing to begin serving homemade soups from Mary’s Food Truck. Ludwig said the mobile business will operate as a pop-up food truck on select weekends rather than following a regular schedule, and plans to announce upcoming openings through the Mary’s Food Truck page on Facebook.

“I am a full-time teacher in Inchelium so this is just a side gig,” Ludwig said. “We are on a four-day work week and so my hours will be on random weekends. I won’t ever have a set schedule. More like a pop-up food truck.” Ludwig said her interest in soup began during her childhood, when it was not unusual for her to spend her allowance on cans of her favorite varieties. “When I was a kid, my grandma Ludwig used to always make me Campbell’s chicken and star soup,” Ludwig said.

“It was my favorite thing to eat as a kid. When other kids were buying candy with their allowance money, I was buying soup.” Ludwig recalled that her parents gave their children weekly allowances and her father would take them to Safeway that evening. “I would come home with cans of soup,” she said. “My mom made everything homemade so this was very different.” Although canned soup was a childhood favorite, Ludwig also learned how to prepare homemade soup from her mother. She said growing up in a large family taught her to cook in quantities that are well-suited for serving customers. “My mom taught me to make huge batches of soup for our big family, I don’t know how to cook for a couple people,” Ludwig said.

Her involvement in the kitchen began at an early age. “My mom told me a story that her friend came to our house and was shocked because I was about 5 or 6 years old sitting on the counter next to the hot stove cooking a pot of soup,” Ludwig said. The idea of turning her passion into a business emerged during a conversation with her friend, Jessica Carpenter, last summer. The two were sitting at the lake and discussing Carpenter’s tart business when Ludwig casually mentioned what she would choose to sell. “I was half joking when I said, ‘If I could sell something, it would be soup,’” Ludwig said. “She looked at me completely serious, and said, ‘Mary you have to do it, you have to sell your soup.’”

The suggestion prompted Ludwig to consider a possibility she had never seriously entertained. “I had never thought of that before,” she said. “I started thinking, ‘Could I?’” Ludwig said she began searching for food trucks online and eventually found a small truck in Idaho. She and her mother purchased the vehicle together, but Ludwig soon learned that buying a truck was only the beginning of the process. “I thought that I could just buy a truck and sell soup,” Ludwig said. “It is a much lengthier process than that.” According to Ludwig, the truck was required to receive permits and inspections through the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries and Tri County Health District. “It took me half a year to get it inspected and permitted,” Ludwig said. “But it is done.”

Ludwig said she had an opportunity to test the community’s appetite for her soup last summer when she held a fundraiser for her son, Miles, before he traveled to compete at the state baseball tournament. “My mom, sister, and I made and delivered soup for about 10 hours that day,” Ludwig said. “My mom made homemade bread to go with each order.” The fundraiser demonstrated that her idea could become more than a passing thought. “That day made me realize that making and selling soup could be a reality,” Ludwig said.

Community members continued to express interest as Ludwig worked through the permitting and inspection process. “The response from the community has been amazing,” Ludwig said. “When I first announced I had bought a food truck, I couldn’t go anywhere without people asking me when I was opening. This is an amazing community