IKEA Is Launching a Food Truck that Will Give Out Free Meatballs

IKEA exists to provide you with furniture—cheap furniture that you have to build yourself.

But somewhere along the way, the furniture giant became an ambassador of not just Swedish design, but also of Swedish food, with their ubiquitous and very reasonably priced meatballs and lingonberry sauce. With some 32 billion euros in annual revenue, it's no surprise that IKEA is continuing to make more culinary inroads by throwing big money at Millennial buzzwords like "food truck," "hashtag," and "pop-up."

Case in point: their new food truck slated to hit the road later this summer. The #TogetherWeEat meatball truck will be making its way to festivals across the US to offer youngins "three IKEA meatball creations made from IKEA chicken, veggie, and Swedish meatballs." According to a press release, those IKEA meatball creations are the Buffalo Chicken Bite, the Veggie California Stack, and the signature KÖTTBULLAR meatball with lingonberry.

"We wanted to allow consumers to taste a variety of delicious and healthy food options found at IKEA Restaurants and IKEA Swedish Food Markets," said Peter Ho, head of food-product development at IKEA US. "But even more than that, we wanted to create an environment that encourages people to gather and enjoy these treats together."

The food truck experiment will also be a chance for IKEA to hawk some of their furniture. "Communal 'pop-up' seating" will be provided for diners, as well as LATTJO table games, trivia cards, and "other conversation games will also be available to encourage great conversation with friends, family and other fellow eaters." The IKEA food truck will be in Chicago for Wicker Park Fest and the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival with a few surprise stops along the way.

The press release did not specify whether diners will have to assemble their own meatballs.