How to log in

Access to the Meal Planning module is via your Kafoodle Kitchen home screen.

Once you have logged into Kafoodle using your username and password, you should see Meal Planning as a tile on the Home screen and you can access the module by clicking through. It will open in a new window.

The dashboard 

Once you have logged into Meal Planning you will be able to see your dashboard which is where active meal plans can be reviewed (by clicking on the relevant date on the calendar) and saved Meal Plans can be viewed and / or edited.

If you have an active Meal Plan on the date you are on the calendar, then the Nutrition and Targets, Notes and Cost sections of the dashboard will be populated. If there is no active meal plan, these will be empty as below (calendar days will appear red. These will appear green for an active meal plan)

Creating a new Meal Plan

To create a new Meal Plan you will click on the ‘New meal plan’ button as below

This will open up a blank meal plan, ready to be populated

All elements of the meal plan can be edited and created to suit your needs.

Clicking on the edit pen icon at the top left of the screen will enable you to rename elements such as the days on the top axis and the meal services on the left axis of the plan.

Click to overwrite in any of these white boxes and then click on ‘Finish Editing’ when you are done.

The + button on the top right will allow you to add more weeks to your meal plan and the ‘add new meal service’ button (bottom left) will allow you to extend your plan as necessary.

Adding items to the Meal Plan

When adding menu items (recipes) to the Meal Plan you have a choice whether to make the items options (where you will provide a selection to choose from) or something which is assumed will be given to everyone. This will be indicated on the meal plan with either O for ‘options’ or E for ‘everyone’.

In order to add menu items you must first create a section within the meal service. You can have one or many sections within each meal service, according to your own operational process.

To create a new section click on the ‘Add new section button’. 

Simply name the section and decide if it will be a section of options or item(s) everyone receives.

An example could be that within the meal service ‘Breakfast’, you may have one section called ‘Hot drink’, with just a cup of tea available  and this may be a section where it is assumed everyone will receive one, and another section called ‘Continental Options’ and it might be that these are items which are options for people to choose from.

The section Header you choose will now be visible with a E or O as appropriate. There will also now appear a + icon to allow you to add menu items (recipes) to the meal plan section.

Adding items (recipes) to a meal plan section

Click on the + button within your section and you will be taken through to a screen where you can select which menu items (recipes) should appear on the meal plan for that section....

This page displays all of your recipes as per your recipe section in Kafoodle Kitchen.

On the left hand side you can limit the menu items (recipes) you are seeing with the search functionality. You can search for a specific item, or within Advanced search you can limit to a particular recipe list, exclude allergens, include dietary requirement tags or search by nutritional elements. Amend your search as appropriate and click ‘search’ to call back the results.

Once you have your available menu items returned, you can select one or several to add to the specific section within the Meal service which you are in.

In the example below Egg has been searched, returning all menu items (recipes) containing the word Egg. Then Poached Egg and Lemon Scented Spinach has been selected and added to the meal plan section.

You can then start a new search for other items to go in the same section if for example you are completing a section which will offer options. E.g. you could change the search to Cereals and then select however many returned menu items were also relevant for that section.

Clicking on the i in the top left corner of any menu item (recipe) will pop open the recipe spec sheet for that recipe, as per the spec sheet you would see in Kafoodle Kitchen.

Once you have finished searching and adding menu items for the section you can just close the screen at the bottom right. This will take you back to the meal plan and show your selections added to the plan.

Copying and pasting sections and menu items within

As a shortcut you are able to copy and paste a section and all of the items within it to add to another day on the meal plan where the same item / options are available. 

To do this, click on the section name and this will open a pop up box where you will be able to click on ‘copy’

Clicking on copy will make ‘paste’ boxes appear in every meal service throughout the plan and if you click on any of these, you will be able to drop the section and the menu items within it to any of these sections as below

This shortcut means if you offer exactly the same menu items in any section you only need to create it once and then just copy and paste for the rest.

Deleting an item from a meal plan

On the meal plan in edit mode, you can click on any menu item (recipe) you have made available and this will open the recipe spec sheet. It will also offer you a button called ‘Remove from List’. Clicking on this will delete the item from your meal plan. You can also print the spec sheet from here, with the print button as highlighted below.

Autosave / saving a meal plan

Whilst you are working on a meal plan the system will autosave to draft every 30 seconds. This means if you close a plan or are distracted away from it at some point you will not lose all of your work. However, you are able to use the Save as draft button at the bottom of the plan to manually save.

Once  you have completed your meal plan you can use the ‘Complete meal plan’ button to save it. This does not mean that you cannot ever change the meal plan - you can still edit it from the dashboard.

Nutrition / Cost widgets

Whilst in the meal plan editing it, you will see at the bottom of the plan, two widgets that allow you to monitor both nutrition and costs. 

You are able to set targets with a high and low end ranges for daily / weekly nutrition per head and monitor these as you build the plan. 

In terms of nutrition and costs, the results v’s the targets will be based on an average of the options available. I.e. if there are 3 options in a section such as ‘Breakfast cereals’ for example, then the cost and the nutritional output which is measured against the targets will be based on the average cost of the options and averages of each of the nutritional measurements. If a section is marked as something everyone receives, then this item will fully count towards the target.

Making a Meal Plan ‘Active’ (starting the plan)

In the dashboard you will see your meal plan saved as a draft and if you click on the 3 dots next to it, you will open up a menu. This will allow you to ‘Start’ a meal plan (make it active), edit it, rename it, duplicate, delete or archive it.

To ‘Start’ a meal plan is to make it active and appear on a given date in the calendar. 

Click on the top option in the pop up - Start

Here you can choose whether the meal plan should be shared with other sites within your business, give the plan a start date and if required, set a number of times the cycle should repeat or even set a date it should run until i.e. an end date.  Once these fields are decided, click Start.

You should now see that on your calendar that all dates within the range you specified will turn green to indicate there is an active meal plan on that date

Reviewing your completed meal plan

In your dashboard, as previously stated, if you have a meal plan active on any given date the date will show as green and  you are able to click on that date on the calendar and see the details inside each of the dashboard sections as circled below. You can see the Nutrition, Costs and menu item details. You can also add a custom note to any given date, e.g. the fact you will have a visitor that day with a specific dietary requirement, recording a birthday etc.

Moving through the dates will move you through the days of the meal plan and allow you to review each one.

Reviewing a Meal Plan

From this dashboard screen you can also review the entire meal plan, where you can look in detail at each section and also print it should you need to.

This is accessed via the icon highlighted below which has the sheet of paper with the eye on it.

Inside the review screen you can look at the plan in a weekly format, or daily. This can be changed by clicking the icons on the top right corner. You can also access the print icon here.

In the daily view you can see the nutrition and allergen data for each of the dishes on the plan

Forecasting and Consumed Servings 

The dashboard explained

The number of diners in the right hand corner are relevant to the active meal plan selected on a specific day (as circled below) 

The produced and consumed servings are also relevant to that day and meal service.

Editing number of diners

Click on the ‘number of diners’ widget on the right hand side of the dashboard. You can type in your diners or use the + or – buttons. These can be edited per day or set for a full menu cycle

Editing number of servings 

To do this, click on the ‘edit servings’ and this will open a pop up box where you will be able to click on enter your produced servings i.e. what you are planning on cooking. This can be done by meal service or full day

Once saved, they will appear on the dashboard.

Adding consumed servings 

To do this, click on the ‘edit servings’ and this will open a pop up box where you will be able to click on enter your consumed servings i.e. what has been served. This can be done by meal service or full day.

Once saved, they will appear on the dashboard. On the cost widget, you can compare costs for produced and consumed by using the green navigation arrows

If you have an active Meal Plan on the date you are on the calendar, then the Nutrition and Targets, Notes and Cost 

Printing a Meal Plan