Leaders of The Food Truck League notice AI favoring national chains over local favorites. (Photos courtesy of The Food Truck League)
Recent feedback from corporate catering events is showing chaos from AI search recommendations.
One organization that has seen this problem up close is The Food Truck League, the state’s largest vetted food truck network, including trucks such as Fry Me To The Moon, Happy Tummie and Chip.
After witnessing multiple AI-driven event failures, the group has called attention to the risks of outsourcing decisions to platforms that prioritize scale over suitability.
“What we’re seeing today with catering is what bookstores, contractors and countless small businesses are facing,” said Taylor Harris, CEO and founder of The Food Truck League. “AI recommendations send people to national size, not quality for our state.”
Harris said that time and time again, they’ve heard of non-local scheduling companies that have promised an authentic local experience but rather have been creating huge headaches for events.
One such experience included a “booked” food truck that never came. The booking hadn’t been received by the local truck and had never even heard of the scheduling company headquartered out of state. Another event experienced a mix-up in menu options of the truck compared to what was listed online.
Stories such as these highlight the issues on how blindly accepting AI-recommended search results hurt local small businesses and their clients on a regular and increasing basis.
While Harris doesn’t think the AI bias is malicious, he does believe it’s a matter of data.
“Search algorithms are designed to value signals of authority, which often creates an unintentional blind spot for local quality,” he said. “They prioritize metrics where national players have an inaccurate advantage, which is a combination of a massive online presence, thousands of nationwide reviews and large advertising budgets.”
The ripple effect
Harris said that this problem extends far beyond event catering.
Hotels, retail shops, Realtors and service providers are all at risk of being overshadowed by one or more out-of-town brands that surfaced first in AI results. The pattern is visible across industries: Even independent bookstores have documented how their sites are buried under Amazon and national chains.
A 2025 analysis of AI Overviews by SE ranking AIOs overwhelmingly favored large, authoritative domains, leaving local sellers invisible and hurting local jobs.
Why local expertise matters
Local providers bring local knowledge, accountability and regulatory knowledge that algorithms cannot replicate. They are invested in the success of their clients because they are part of the same economy, the same neighborhoods and the same community.
Eliot Steimle, The Food Truck League’s general manager, said that contextual knowledge can be the difference between disaster and a wonderful experience.
“AI can help make suggestions, but it can and will make mistakes,” Steimle said. “Technology as a tool should support local expertise, not overwrite it. When AI search suggests a national booking platform, it doesn’t know which food truck has a cult following in downtown Salt Lake or which one can reliably serve 200 people in an hour. AI just doesn’t have access to the data to make informed decisions.”
The promise of AI is genuinely convenient, but the reality is risk, he said. Without human overview, the recommendations often miss the most important factors for success: reliability, cultural fit and accountability.
The fallout is wasted budgets, strained reputations and unnecessary chaos.
How to beat the AI blind spot
The solution, The Food Truck League suggests, begins with the prompt itself.
A broad search like “best event vendors” or “top hotels” will almost always produce the largest answer as the best result. But when the query specifies context such as “best HVAC repair companies in Salt Lake City with fast response” or “Salt Lake City roofing contractors with verified local experience” or even “Utah based food truck catering experts for events,” the search results become more accurate and useful.
They suggest that by framing the search with a local expertise into the search request, decision-makers shift AI from favoring the national brand to surfacing partners who can actually
deliver success.
About The Food Truck League
Founded on the belief that great events are about connection through food, friends and fun, The Food Truck League has spent more than a decade curating and vetting Utah’s top food trucks to ensure seamless experiences for executive lunches, conferences and large-scale public or private gatherings.