Cycle Menu-Final Rule

This is where you create Cycle Menus-Final Rule, which uses the FBMP Final Rule nutritional standard, and apply them to the school calendar.

What is a Cycle Menu?

A Cycle Menu is a template for a standard sequence of daily menus that can be used repeatedly. It can be for any number of days, but usually is for a month or less.

With Meals PlusMenus, you can define any number of Cycle Menus and use the Food-Based Analysis tool to ensure that the meals served are nutritionally balanced.

After you have created your cycle menus (templates) you can apply them to the cafeterias.

Multiple Cycle Menus can be applied to the same site, date and meal type.

This allows you to organize and balance cycle menu items for different serving lines.

Example: A cafeteria might have three serving lines, where line one serves a regular plate lunch, line two is a salad bar and line three serves sandwiches. Each line can have a separate nutritionally balanced cycle menu.

 Menus are created from MEals

You can set up your own under Reimbursable Meals.

• To place a single Ingredient on a menu, you need to convert it to a Recipe first.

  • Please see Shortcuts on Ingredients Setup.

The grid shows all of your existing Cycle Menus.

• To view or edit an existing Cycle Menu-Final Rule, double-click the row in the grid or highlight it and click View/Edit.

Creating and Editing a Cycle Menu

• On a clear screen, enter a Description and Number of Days for the cycle menu you want to create.

• Select Breakfast, Lunch, After-school Snack or Supper from the Nutritional Standard from the dropdown list. (If you have not set up the Nutritional Standard for this menu yet, close this screen and set it up under Administration: Nutritional Standard.)

• Click Save to save the new menu name and description.

• Highlight the menu in the grid and click View/Edit or double-click the highlighted menu to open the Cycle Menu edit screen.

Setup tab

This is where you add the recipes and projected number of servings to create reimbursable Meals.

• Click the blue arrows or use the slider bar to browse through and Select a day in the cycle.

• The total number of reimbursable meals that you plan to serve that day will default to 100 in the Planning Meal Count text field but can be edited. This will be used in calculating the nutrient portion analysis. 

  This is for planning purposes only. You can use a representative or average number here; each school’s individual planning meal count will be used when the cycle menu is applied to the daily menu calendar.

• Click the  button to add a new blank line to the menu grid. 

  • Public Calendar is checked by default.
    • This means that it will be listed on the calendar that is designed for public distribution. You can list up to 10 items on each day.
    • Uncheck the box if you don’t want the item to be listed. For example, you could have a note in the news section that says “Assorted milk available daily” so you would not need to list it on every day’s public menu.
  • Enter a Meal Id or Recipe in the Id column, if known. Then press Tab and it will fill in the rest of the information. Otherwise, when a recipe is entered, the:
    •  M indicates that the item is a meal.
    •  R indicates that item is a recipe.
  • Select a Meal or, if needed, a Recipe by description from the dropdown list that appears when you click in the Description field.
    • If you click in the Meal field and type the first letter of the meal, it will start the list at that position. When you select the meal, it will fill in the Meal ID and Size.
    • This functionality applies to recipes as well.
  • Size is the Serving Size from the recipe.
    • There are three editable boxes here: one for whole numbers, one for fractions and one for portion description. You can fill in either or both, or all of them.
    • If you change the sizing, it will affect the Food-Based Analysis and Prep Report.
  • The A/R field indicates which meals that are reimbursable.  If the Id is an M (Meal), then the meal will automatically display as Reimb.  If the Id is an R, then the A/R is an Adult or A La Carte item.  The dropdown gives you two choices:
    •  A la carte and Adult. Only the reimbursable items will be used in the nutrient-based analysis.
  • Projected Servings is the number of servings that you plan on serving of this menu item.
    •  For Reimbursable meals, this information in conjunction with the feeding figure will be used in the nutrient portion of the analysis.
    •  For Adult and Alacarte items, it is just for planning and production purposes.
  • If the Inactive box is read-only and checked in Manage Recipes, the item is not used in analysis, nor is it applied to the School Day Menu or copied when using the Duplicate feature.
    • If recipe is marked as inactive, it will not display in the prep report or in analysis.

•  To remove a menu item, highlight the row and click the  button.

Changing the Projected Serving Size

You are able to change the projected serving for the recipes of a reimbursable meal in this grid.

• Click the plus sign to the left of the Public Calendar checkbox.  This displays the recipes within the reimbursable meal.

• Highlight the project serving of the recipe you would like to change and enter the new number in the Proj. Servings field.

  • If the meal is copied, the projected recipe servings will carry over.
  • If the cycle menu is duplicated, the projected recipe servings will carry over.
  • This information is only needed for the nutrient calculations.  The component values do NOT change.

• Click Save.

Changing the sequence of menu items

Highlight a row and use the    arrows to move the item up or down.

Shortcuts on Cycle Menu Setup

Several options are available at the bottom of Cycle Menu Setup to help you create menus quickly and easily.

Search

• Click the   button to search for meals or recipes based on specific nutrient criteria or description text.

  • The purpose of the function is to allow you to find foods to use to update menus that do not meet the criteria required by USDA.
  • You can search for meal and recipe entries that meet certain nutrient criteria, such as foods high in vitamin C or low in fat. You are able to search for as many as fourteen nutrients at the same time and are able to print or display the report.
  • There are different types of search criteria for finding meals and recipes.  Some of the types can be used in combination. The defined meal information comes from Reimbursable Meals.

Recipe Tab

On the Recipe tab, you can search by Meal Component (FBMP), for all or part of a Recipe ID and/or Description text.

Notes on Recipe Tab

• You can filter the result set of the filtered ingredient to display recipes that are marked as Condiments.   The recipe is defined as a condiment on the Manage Recipe: Recipe Info tab. This filter is in addition to other matched selected criteria. 
• Selecting the Contains/Does not Contain radio button will include/exclude the selected allergen in the filter in the recipe search.  The allergen filter applies to the entire recipe, not just the selected ingredient. This filter is in addition to other matched selected criteria. 
• To indicate that you want to filter on an allergen all you need to do is check the checkbox, doing that will filter on that allergen – regardless of that allergens additional information. 

Ingredient Tab

On the Ingredient tab, you can search by ID and Description, and you can filter to show only Menus Ingredients that are associated with Inventory Items.

Example:In the screen shown below, it will find all recipes that use an ingredient with Apple in the description have at least one ingredient that is associated with an Inventory Item.

• Click  to search based the criteria you entered.

• The Recipe Search Results will display. The results only display Active recipes.

The results grid will display the recipes that meet the search criteria.

• Check the box on the left to select a recipe, and then click Add to add it to the current day’s cycle menu.

Meals Tab

• On the Meals tab, you can search by recipe ID and Description that are included in the reimbursable meal.

• Enter a recipe Id in a Meal, Meal Id, or description in the appropriate text field.

o  Check any Allergens, if necessary.

§  The Meals allergen information is based on the recipes that are included in the Meal.           

• Click  to search based the criteria you entered.

• Click  to add the meal to the menu.

Copy to other days

• Click the  button to copy menu recipes to other days in the menu cycle.

  • It will also copy the quantity, A/R type and projected servings.
  • The Public Calendar setting will be copied for a maximum of (10) ten items per day.

• Highlight the menu items that you would like to copy. To select multiple items, hold down the control key while you click with the mouse.

• Click the Copy button. You will get a screen like this:

• Check the days you want to copy the recipes to.

• Check Replicate Feeding Figure if you want to use the same feeding figure every day.

• Click Copy and it will add the recipes to the selected days.

Prep Report

• Click  to print a Prep Report for the highlighted recipes directly from the Cycle Menu screen, using the Projected Servings and Serving Sizes from the menu.

  • If a Meal is highlighted, it will print all the recipes that make up that meal using the Projected Servings and Serving Sizes from the menu.

   

Recipe Information

• The  screen will display the Meal and Recipes Information directly from the Reimbursable Meal screen. You can then Manage Recipes from the Reimbursable Meal screen.

  • The Information is only active when a recipe is highlighted.  It will not be available if a Meal is selected.

Meals Food-Based Analysis

• The  button is available on the Cycle Menu screen and also on the School Daily Menu if your menu is based on FBMP Nutritional Standards.

Sample Public Calendar

• Click  to view and/or print a sample Public Calendar directly from the Cycle Menu screen using the available filters.

• Enter a Start Date for the cycle menu to display for the calendar.

• Select a school calendar from the School Calendar dropdown list.

• Select a template for the calendar from the Calendar Template dropdown list.

• Enter a subtitle for the calendar in the Calendar SubTitle field.

• Enter any school news and/or non-discrimination statement you would like displayed on the calendar in the News and Non-discrimination Statement text boxes.

•  Click Print.