CN Executive Update® Spring 2025 Digital Edition Digital

Operations Professional Pathways

Executive Update

Analyzing Your School Menu Getting Started with Data Collection By Sally Spero, SNS. School Foodservice Consultant

Three minute read

In Brief: A practical framework for analyzing school menus through data collection, item evaluation, and strategic planning to balance costs, student preferences, and nutritional requirements while optimizing participation and reducing waste.

A nalyzing menu data and produc- tion records is crucial to running an effective foodservice operation. The process can reveal some very interesting, very useful, and often costsaving informa- tion. Besides, how else can you track finan- cial performance and respond to changing customer tastes if you don’t know how your

and experience when it comes to analyzing your menus. First, you have to decide what you want to know, and second, you need to decide what you’ll want to focus on when you have gathered all your information. You may ask yourself: • Which entrées are popular and which are not? • How do entrée choices compare between our school sites? • What are the most popular items at our salad bar? • Which schools are experiencing the most food waste? Continues on next page

current menu items are performing? What an Analysis Can Reveal

Commercial restaurants rely heavily on soft- ware packages to track the performance of items on their menus. Technology tools can help, but there’s a lot to be said for intuition

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