Webinar: Optimizing Production Based on your People and Menus
Webinar (April 24, 2025) on Optimizing Production Based on your People and Menus (conducted by Heather Carey and Tessa Stone).
Questions and Answers from Webinar
How do you manually enter the amount of residents that you have on your different diets?
You can do so by configuring a dining area with a manual census. See Configuring a Dining Area with a Manual Census.
Is there a way to set percentages to textures/extensions?
- You have the option to configure your percentage forecasting using either a straightforward selection method or a more detailed approach by category by using the Set Method By Meal forecast option. This allows you customize the percentages for each meal, incorporating various layers of percentages based on service types or specific menu service locations. For more information and instructions, see Configuring Different Forecasting (or no Forecasting) for Meal Periods/Snack Times.
- The system automatically considers textures and extensions when generating your production reports; however, it does not allow for customization of percentages based on texture or extension. If you require a more detailed examination of your forecasting, you may opt to use the Forecasting Worksheet to focus on specific diet and texture combinations. For more information about using Forecasting Worksheets, check out this section of our resource center: The Forecasting Worksheets.
What does "honor forecast settings" mean when adding your forecast method to the menu?
When scheduling a menu, the Honor Forecast Settings option applies the Set Method by Meal forecast option from which you can customize percentages based on each meal period/snack time.
Why do some menus have a status of Future?
This means that when the menu was scheduled, a future start date was selected. When that date occurs, the menu will automatically become active (and have the status of Active).
Can you get category-specific in the Set Method by Meal forecast option?
Yes. For the Set Method by Meal forecast option, you can set the percentage per category of per meal period/snack time.
What happens if the total is >100%? I see Entrée at 65/45 = 110%.
With the table select service type (where people are choosing at meal time), sometimes a production team wants to prepare a little extra or needs to account for show plates. Thereby, by going above 100%, they can get that little bit of padding for the pre-prep.
Will changes to your forecasting percentages link to nutritional analysis and costing?
Forecasting does not impact nutritionals or costing. Nutritional and costing information are reflected for a menu item (i.e., recipe) as the whole, and are not affected by forecasting.
Now that you've updated the menu items manually, like broccoli and squash, if you change your default setting in forecasting, will you lose those custom changes?
Yes. If you update the percentage for a menu item on the menu and then later change the default forecasting settings, the new default will overwrite your custom percentages. See What Happens if the Default Percentages are Changed?
Am I able to assign an item to more than one production area?
No. A menu item can be assigned to only one production area at a time. Therefore it is recommended to think about production areas as groupings of items that are prepared in similar ways. For example, the Hot Production contains everything that needs to be cooked or baked, while the Cold Production contains everything that needs to be put together as is.
When running production reports, you will select the menu service location(s), which in turn determine the dining area and menu, so therefore your production areas can be more broad.
If I notice a recipe has no picture on my Recipes at Scale report, can I add one?
Yes! You can add photos to your recipes. To do so, see the following article: Uploading or Replacing a Recipe Photo.
Is there a way in production to put in "pulls"/"prep" for the next 2-3 days? Where would it show? How do you select to show on the specific date. For example, remove Inside Round Monday (for lunch Friday) from freezer to thaw; Thursday cook Inside Round for slicing Friday morning.
The Ingredient Preparation Sheet will generate a list of ingredients and their quantities that require pre-preparation on the day of service, such as cutting or dicing.
The Ingredient Pull Sheet will generate the total amount to pull for ingredients with a pull value.
In the base settings for production reports, you can enter a single date or a date range, and select one or more meal periods, to see what needs to be prepped or pulled on those date(s) and meal period(s) for these reports.
Do the Prep methods and Pull dates have to be defined in each recipe?
Yes. The prep method and pull value are defined for an ingredient in each recipe.
This [webinar] is focused on production reports in a paper based kitchen; what about a paperless?
Three of the reports from the core system carry over into the Touch app (aka Paperless Kitchen). The following section in our resource center shows what the reports look like in the Touch app: Production Reports in the Touch App.