“At the elementary-school level, I favor a five-week cycle with five alternative meal options that can fit in to break up the routine,” Pisanick says. The length of the cycle depends on the size of your operation, budget, and student food preferences.Ī longer cycle usually means more options, but even shorter cycles contain plenty of variety. For example, a four-week cycle menu offers different items each day during a four-week period, then repeats. What is a Cycle Menu?Ĭycle menus are written for a specific time period. This means less inventory waste in the kitchen and less uneaten food tossed in the trash bin. Cycle menus are designed to meet government regulation challenges, save planning time, control spending, improve workflow, and make diners happy. Once you clear the cycle-menus-lack-creativity hurdle, a lot of other benefits come into view. “Then they will look forward to Pizza Friday or Taco Tuesday, and you can build in menu variations so it’s a fresh and creative meal every time.” “Generate excitement by surveying those you serve, and then determine ways to work their wishes into the menu,” she says. They offer food-buying cost controls, bring money-saving staff efficiency, reduce waste, and promote safety-all while allowing for a flexible meal structure that can be marketed to students and their parents. Her experience as a consultant and a former school foodservice director has shown cycle menus marry well with most programs. Getting past this barrier is a matter of educating your staff and rethinking your menu, Pisanick says. “One of the biggest barriers to starting a cycle menu is the perception that it eliminates creativity and variety,” says Maureen Pisanick, President and Chief Nutrition Officer at Pisanick Partners. We’re talking about cycle menus, which can take your breakfast, lunch, and snack service any direction you want, with benefits to the health of your program. We’re not talking about spin class, where participants toil for hours and go nowhere. What can foodservice directors learn from fitness trainers? For one thing, cycling has its benefits.
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