A New, Healthier Food Truck Hits NYC Streets

By Carly Sitzer

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Move over, YoGo Yogurt Truck. A new food truck is claiming healthiness as their selling point in the city.

Dole's new "portable fruit stand" is kicking off a 12-city road trip aboard their Dole Food Truck as part of a promotion for their new, all-natural fruit bowls on Tuesday.

See Also: NYC's Best Food Trucks | A Guide To NYC Farmers' Markets

The truck will be stationed on 49th Street by Rockefeller Center. In addition to giving out free fruit to New Yorkers who visit the truck, Dole has partnered with Feeding America to give up to 250,000 fruit cups to families in need.

There may be a lot of food trucks on the streets of New York, but Marty Ordman, Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Dole, assured CBSNewYork that their truck is different from the others.

"The product that we're giving out is healthy and this time of year, people are looking for that healthy and refreshing snack," he said. "Also, it's free!"

Additionally, the amount of people who come out to try the fruit directly affects the amount of food that gets donated to people in need.

Ordman said Dole was inspired to do a food truck because it was a way to get children and adults alike excited about healthy choices, while covering several locations.

"We wanted to hit multiple cities so the food truck is a nice focal point so you can reach a large amount of people in a given day or in a couple of days," he said. "The truck is just a really good vehicle—excuse the pun—to go to a lot of different cities and be able to sample a lot of products."

Ordman said New York City was the "natural place to start." After the kick-off event, the truck will travel to Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles, before ending in San Diego.

In the truck isn't coming to your city, you also can "Like" the Dole Facebook Page to help Dole reach their goal of 250,000 fruit bowls pledged to Feeding America.

"They're a wonderful organization and they touch a lot of people's lives," Ordman said. "We're just very pleased that we can help provide a healthy product like the Dole fruit bowls to help get people that are a little less fortunate eat healthy, nutritious foods."