Administration Professional Pathways
Executive Update
Six Ways to Transform Your Food Service Operation By Dee Carroll, Carroll Services, Inc. Master Your Kitchen’s Efficiency with Cycle Menus
In Brief: This article discusses the benefits and implementation of cycle menus in school nutrition programs, highlighting their impact on efficiency, planning, and food management. Three minute read
C ommon objections to cycle menus often sound familiar: “Our operation is too unique for a fixed menu.”“We need more variety than a cycle menu can offer!”“What about being able to adapt to ingredient availability?”These concerns are understandable, but experience has shown that implementing cycle menus can transform food service operations. Once you begin using them regularly, you might ask, “Why did I wait so long?” Consider key advantages of adopting cycle menus. Plan Once, Benefit All Year While initial planning requires dedicated effort to design each meal in the cycle, the planning burden for the rest of the year diminishes significantly once complete. You can focus more energy on execution and refinement. Start by mapping out a 4-6 week cycle, considering factors like ingre- dient seasonality, equipment capacity, and labor requirements. Include contingency plans for popular items and establish a review schedule every 3-4 months to make minor adjustments. This upfront investment pays dividends throughout the year, as your team can shift their daily focus from menu
planning to quality control, presentation, and customer service. Operations docu- menting their planning process creates a valuable template for future menu cycles. Master Your Supply Chain With repeating menus throughout the cycle, ordering becomes more systematic. You’ll typically order items and quantities similar to those you did in previous cycles. This consistency allows for better cost control and justifies adding new menu items to your food bids, knowing they’ll be used multiple times throughout the year. Historical ordering data helps negotiate better pricing with vendors, while predict- able volumes reduce emergency orders and associated premium costs. Consider main- taining a preferred substitute list for each ingredient to ensure menu integrity. Perfect Through Repetition “Practice makes perfect” perfectly describes the cycle menu advantage. Regular prepa- ration of the same foods with consistent ingredients leads to mastery. There’s less pressure to constantly learn new recipes, though you can continually innovate for future menu cycles. Special events become
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