Standard menus
Standard menu plans are comprised of a set of independent weeks. Each week contains meal offerings for the week for a certain configuration. Each week is independent of all other weeks meaning that no changes in week A can affect week B
Configuration
Menu configurations can be accessed on Menu Plan settings
Grade group: Used to set menu compliance standards
Meals: Refer to meal programs like the NSLP. Used to set the compliance standards
Locations: schools or sites served by the menu
Categories: Mains and sides. Used for compliance and for public menu display
Subcategories: Custom per school district
Feeding figure: the total number of students served by a meal. It defaults to 100.
Menu Plans vs School Menus
A menu plan is the master menu from which school menus are derived. When publishing a Menu plan, the corresponding school menus are published as copies of the Menu plan. Any subsequent updates to the menu plan is also carried out on the school menus. Changes to a school menu don't affect other schools and don't affect the menu plan.
Visibility and editing
Menu plans are only visible to Directors and they are the only ones who can edit them.
School menus are visible to directors and the school managers of their respective schools. School managers can’t edit school menus.
Publishing, and versioning
A Menu plan week exists in 3 states
Unpublished: This is where every week starts and remains until it’s published. The corresponding school menus for that week don’t yet exist.
Published: corresponding school menus are created and become visible to schools and to visitors of the public portal
Draft: After publishing, edits will not be visible to schools and parents. Instead, A draft is created where all subsequent edits are saved. The user can toggle between the published version (the one visible to schools and parents) and the draft (an internal copy containing unpublished changes). The draft can then be published which causes school menus and the parent portal to receive the updates. This update constitutes a new version of the menu.
Editing School menus
Directors can edit school menus individually. Example: If Menu Plan A serves Schools 1, 2, and 3, then all schools have the same menu. Directors can make changes to all schools by editing the Menu plan or they can make changes distinctly to School 2 by editing the school menu of school 2. Those changes will not affect schools 1 and 3.
When the director publishes changes to a School menu, that school menu week is now Off-plan, meaning that it no longer follows the Menu Plan and thus will no longer receive updates when the Menu Plan is re-published.
School plans go Off-plan only on specific weeks. So if a School menu is Off-plan on the first week of September, it will still receive updates for the second week of September, given that that week isn’t also Off-plan
Archiving Menu Plans
When a menu plan is no longer useful - like at the end of the year - it can be archived.
This means that it will no longer be edited, it will not show up on the menu plan selector, but it can still be accessed for future reference.
To see an archived menu, you have to unarchive it first.
When a menu plan is archived, all corresponding school menus are also archived
Saving
Changes to menu plans are saved automatically. You never need to press a save button. Think of it like a Google doc.
Changes to a published menu are saved on the draft. When on a published menu, any edit causes a draft to be created. All subsequent edits are automatically saved to that draft. When viewing the draft, you can toggle to see the published version. Any changes there will cause the existing draft to get discarded and a new draft to be created with the new change.
Past menus
Every menu day is only editable if it’s in the present or the future. This means that
You can’t publish updates to a menu week from last month
When publishing changes to the current week, changes will take place only in the present and future days. Days in the past will accept changes, but the changes will be discarded when publishing.
Cycle menus
Cycle Menus work similarly to standard menus with a few exceptions highlighted in this section. It's best that you read Standard Menus first ↑
Setup
Cycle Menu plans have a cycle duration, a start, and an end week.
A 4-week cycle menu is comprised of Weeks A, B, C, and D. This means that the school menus for a year are going to be A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D, etc….
A cycle always starts with week A.
Cycle weeks
Unlike a standard menu, cycle menu weeks are linked. Changes to Week A are carried out to all A weeks.
Example: If A 2-week cycle menu starts on the first of January with Week A, that means that the first week is an A week. The second week is a B week. The third week is back to an A week and the fourth week is a B week. in this example, if changes are made to the first week, which is an A week, the same changes will take place in the third week because all A weeks are the same.
This example works backward as well. Changes to week 3 will also be seen in week 1, as long as both of them are in the future.
Publishing A week publishes all A weeks in the present and future.
Going Off-cycle
Directors can publish updates to a certain week without affecting the rest of the cycle. this takes the Menu plan week off-cycle.
If an A week is off-cycle, no updates are carried out to the other A weeks.
School menus related to the Off-cycle week remain on plan. This means that further updates to an off-cycle week will be published on school menus.
Compliance
Gaia follows the nutrition standards set by the USDA for the various meal programs. Each meal and week shows compliance status based on the grade group and the USDA meal program. You can read more about the compliance standards.
The bottom of every meal card shows the compliance status relative to a meal component (Grain, Meat, Vegetable: Red/Orange, Vegetable: Starchy, Vegetable: Legume, Vegetable: Dark green, Vegetable: other, Fruit, Milk) and cost
Quick reference guides