Fulfillment is how food moves from a central facility to the schools it serves; the flow that connects what schools order, what the facility produces or stocks, what it sends, and what each school receives. For a district that runs its own central kitchen or warehouse, fulfillment is the operational backbone: the same order data drives production records, inventory transfers between sites, cost, and on-time delivery to every school. For how central facilities themselves work, see About Central Kitchens and Warehouses in Gaia.
Why Fulfillment Matters
Accuracy compounds. What's ordered drives what's produced and what inventory moves. An error at the order stage ripples into over- or under-production, wasted food, cost, and compliance gaps.
Scale breaks manual work. A facility serving 20+ schools can't be run one order at a time. Efficiency here is the difference between a scalable operation and a daily scramble.
Directors need oversight. You need to see, at a glance, where every school's order stands for a given day — and act across all of them without opening each one.
Two Ways to Manage Fulfillment
Gaia gives a central facility two views over the same orders:
The Orders view — organized by school and day. A weekly picture of every school's order and where it stands; best for tracking fulfillment and moving orders through their lifecycle. See Managing the Central Facilities Orders View.
The Item view — organized by product. Every product the facility is fulfilling, with each receiving school beneath it; best for acting across many schools at once including adding products, bulk-editing amounts, and swapping. See Managing Central Facilities Orders from the Item View.
Both act on the same underlying orders, so a change in one shows up in the other. For a single order's full lifecycle (approve, send, receive, adjust), which works the same for every vendor, see Managing Orders on the Order Page.
What Can Be Edited, and When
Editability follows each delivery's status. Orders still open or in Draft are editable; once a school's delivery is Received, that row is locked and its inventory movement stands. A row that can't be edited shows a short reason when you hover over it.
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