Production is the process of preparing food on recipes listed on the menu, withdrawing items from inventory counts, creating leftovers, and printing required State and Federal reports.
Important information to remember:
- A meal must be planned before it can be produced.
- Items must have inventory quantities to be produced. This prevents you from having negative inventory balances.
- If you have substituted an item in a recipe:
- You must Remove the item from the Recipe on the Production screen.
- Add the item you substituted to the Recipe on the Production screen.
- Review the setting in Utilities > Warehouse Options to be sure the software will perform as expected. Please refer to Setup Your School Information at the beginning of this manual.
- You can Produce meals,Print your Recipes and Menu Pull Sheets (withdrawal) ahead of time.
- On the day of service,you can edit your work, entering your meal counts and leftovers before checking your production report for accuracy.
- Once the meal has been produced, the food will be removed from your inventory and leftovers will be placed in the inventory.
Production Reports
Reports that are commonly printed before Meal Production are as follows:
- Menu Pull Sheet
- Menu Production Worksheets
- Recipe Instructions
- Production Guide
Reports that are commonly printed after Meal Production are as follows:
- Production Report
- Daily Food Cost
To Print Production Reports:
Step 1 - Click on the Production Report button from Quick Launch and the following form will be displayed:
The print button in on the Quick Launch will print the same reports as the Print button on the Production screen (discussed below).
Step 2 - Select the desired report and click the Ok button and a form similar to the one below will displayed, depending on the report selected.
Step 3 - Select the desired options, and click the View or Ok button to print the report. Click the View button if you want to return to this screen to print other Production Reports. If this is the only meal needed for printing, click Ok to print the report. You will not be returned to this screen.
All reports will print the screen first as shown below:
Click the Printer icon to print the report to paper.
Click the Arrow Keys to scroll move through pages.
Click the Binocularsicon to search for words.
Drag the Scroll Bar to move up and down.
Click the Tree View to jump to groupings.
Prepare to Produce
Before producing meals, it is typical to review meal counts and print reports the morning of preparation.
Step 1 - Select the Production button from the Quick Launch and the following screen will be displayed:
Step 2 - Select the Serving Date to be produced.
Step 3 - Click the Meal Type button (Breakfast, Lunch, or Snack) to be produced and then the bottom section will be filled with the Meals To Produce (recipes on the meal).
The Status column's folder will be yellow when the recipe has been produced and white when the recipe has not been produced.
Step 4 - Click the Meal Planning button to change planning counts for the date shown. Planned counts may also be entered in the Calendar View as shown in the Planning section of this manual. Entering the planned counts from the Production screen works the exact same way as entering from the calendar view.
The Menu Planning button in the Production screen was designed to make quick changes. It allows you add and remove menus, recipes, and change your planned counts. It loads faster than Meal Planning because it is loading just one day at a time. Use this button to make adjustments to the menu because of delivery, weather or staffing issues. For more information on making changes to the Meal Planning screen, please refer to that section in this manual.
Step 5 - Select the Recipe and click the Produce button and the following form will be displayed. Notice the Recipe Name in the title bar.
Step 6 - If necessary, click and change the Prepared counts.
If you change the prepared counts, click the Recalculate Estimated Quantity button to have the recipe rescale. This will change the Unit Quantity needed to prepare the recipe.
Step 7 - Click Ok to save the changes.
Step 8 - Repeat steps 5 thru 6 until all recipes have been changed.
Step 9 - Click the Print button and select the Menu Production Worksheet. Use this to show your kitchen staff what and how much to prepare.
The print button in Production shows the same as the Production Report button on the Quick Launch screen. It was added here for your convenience.
How to Use and Read the Menu Production Worksheet
Post the Menu Production Worksheet in the Kitchen as a guide for daily production. You will need a menu production worksheet for each meal prepared.
Step 1 - In the Recipe Description column, hand-write person's name that is responsible for the production of this recipe and any specific instructions.
Step 2 - The Item Description and Units To Pull shows the amount to be prepared based on the "planned" counts.
Remember, when you first start using the program, there could be mistakes in the recipe. It is the manager's responsibility to verify the correct amount to prepare. Recipe errors should be reported to your Supervisor as soon as possible.
Step 3 - In the Actual Amounts Used column, hand-write the amount pulled to prepare the recipe. The kitchen staff may have used different inventory items or amounts than listed in the Units to Pull column.
Step 4 - When the meal service is complete, hand-write the leftovers in the Leftover Servings column. It is best to have this in servings and describe what was done with the food. Was it discarded? Do you plan use it on a serving date in the future? Will you put it the freezer for future use?
Step 5 - Physical Count - After meal production is complete and before keying in production, count the remaining inventory in the storeroom, cooler, or freezer. When you are in production, you should compare physical count written here to the computer inventory count.
If this is done daily, the end of the month inventory will always balance. Each day you are comparing physical inventory counts with what is listed in the software.
When this form has been completed, you are ready to do Production!
Produce Recipes
Step 1 - Select the Production button from the Quick Launch and the following screen will be displayed:
Step 2 - Select the Serving Date to be produced.
Step 3 - Click the Meal Type button (Breakfast, Lunch, or Snack) to be produced and then the bottom section will be filled with the Meals To Produce (recipes on the meal).
The Status column's folder will be yellow when the recipe has been produced and white when the recipe has not been produced.
Step 4 - Click the Produce button and the following form will be displayed with all recipes scaled based on planned counts.
Top Section – Applicable Serving Records:The top section displays the menu for each age group or serving size. All of the counts in this section can be changed except the planned counts.
To change planned counts, you must close this screen and click the Meal Planning button.
Middle Section – Production Components: The middle section displays each item listed on the recipe designated by the Central Office.
Source |
Issue - The item will be pulled from your Inventory on-hand balance. |
Item Description |
You may see the same catalog number listed twice. This is because the item has two different brands or packing information. |
Brand |
The item may be listed twice if there are 2 different brands. |
Unit Description |
The description of the item. |
Partial Qty |
This is the amount that can be pulled from a broken case. |
Partial Unit |
The unit of the partial quantity that can be pulled from a broken case. |
Total Qty Used |
The total of the unit description plus the partial unit. The total amount to pull. |
Discarded |
When leftovers are displayed and cannot be used, select this Discarded. This will print on the Production Report on the day it was discarded. |
Quantity Remaining |
What remains after the amount item is pulled. |
When Quantity Remaining values remaining are shown in red, this is a negative value. This screen will not close as long as there are negative values. The software will not allow you to use what you do not have.
The program will suggest using leftovers first only when they were planned to be used. This will be discussed in more detail in the Leftover section of this manual.
Bottom Section – Production Components: The bottom section is used to record leftovers.
Step 5 - Click on the Unit Quantity Used or the Partial Quantity Used to change the amount you are pulling from inventory
- If you are using exactly what is displayed on all items and there are no leftovers, then click the Ok button. There is nothing else to do.
- If you need to change the amount being used, there are several ways this can be done.
Lettuce Salad Mix comes packed in 5 lb bags, with 4 bags in a case. That equals a total of 20 lbs.
Type 26 in the Partial Used and press the Enter key
The screen will change the Quantity Used to one case containing four pounds, one 5 lb, and one single pound. Notice the Quantity Remaining is now red because you only had 25 lbs in inventory, so attempting to use 26 lbs would not be allowed. You could also have type 1 slash 1 in the Quantity Used.
Ground beef comes packed in 10 lbs, with 4 in a case.
Type 12 in the Partial Used and press the Enter key.
Since the whole case was not used, the screen will show zero case,one10 lb., and 2 single lbs were used. You could have also typed slash 1 in the Quantity Used and 2 in the Partial Used.
When there is nothing listed in the Partial Unit column, you can only use the whole portion of the Unit Description.
Adding Items and Leftovers
Step 1 - Click the Add button to add from Inventory or Leftovers.
The following form will be displayed:
Step 2 - Click From Leftovers and choose a receipt that was previously produced and placed in your leftover inventory.
Step 3 - To manually add an item that was not originally listed in the recipe, click From Inventory and click Ok to choose from current inventory on-hand and the following form will be displayed. Type the item name or description and press Ok to select the item you wish to add.
When adding items, notice that there may be more than one item with the same description.
- Be careful to the select the right brand for the item.
- Many items are available in both purchased and commodity.
When items are leftovers are added that were not listed on the original recipe, the program will only suggest you issue one. Be sure to change the Quantity Use or Partial Use after adding items and leftovers.
Remove an Ingredient from a Recipe
Step 1 - Click on the recipe ingredient that you wish to remove. A dark black line will be drawn around the Item Description.Click the Remove button.
A red linewill be drawn through the item that you selected.
The item will not be removed until you click the Ok button, but once you hit the Remove button, you must click the Add button you put the item back on the recipe.
Recording Leftovers
Step 1 - The bottom section of the Production Record form is used to record your leftovers.Enter the Portion Quantity leftover.
Step 2 - If you do not know the serving date that you plan to use the leftovers in the future, click the Ok button to save your Production counts. You will be returned to the Production screen. Notice that the folder is yellow for all recipes that have been produced. Repeat steps 1 through 11 for all recipes on the menu.
Step 3 - If you know the serving date that you plan to use the leftover, click on the button:
Step 4 - The following form will be displayed. Enter the Week you plan to serve the leftover by clicking More button next to the date, choose the Serving Date, and the Meal Type and the calendar menus will be listed one week at a time.
Step 5 - The Click on the Recipe under the Menu where you plan to use the leftovers and click the Ok button.
You must choose a Recipe. You will not be able to click Ok when you are choose a Menu. Menu names have a darker gray background. Recipe names are slightly indented below the menu.
On the day that you are planning to use the leftover, the production form for the recipe chosen will automatically contain the leftover and the planned counts will be reduced by the portions of leftovers. In other words, leftovers will be used first.
Step 6 - Click the Ok button to save your Production counts. You will be returned to the Production screen. Notice that the folder is yellow for all recipes that have been produced. Repeat steps 1 through 11 for all recipes on the menu.
Production - Meal Counts
When all of the recipes have been produced, all of the folders will be yellow.
Meal Counts are not current pulled in from the POS software. Print the following reports from the MCS Point of Sale program to obtain Serving Counts to be entered.
- Daily Recap Report
- Total Served by Grade Report
- Meal Summary Report
Step 1 - Click on the Meal Counts button and the following form will be displayed:
Step 2 - Enter the number of Meals Served in the yellow blocks and click the Ok button. These counts will be printed at the top of the Production Report.
If the planned meals need to be changed, click in the white boxes. A message warning will be displayed about changing planned counts, click OK and change the planned counts.
Some districts enter the extra sales values in Extra Item Sales. This value is divided by a Meal Equivalent Factor and The Number of Meals is added to the Production Report.
Printing After Production and Food Cost Reports
Step 1 - Click the Print button and the following form will be displayed. Select the Production Report and click the Ok button. The production report can also be printed from the Quick Launch.
Step 2 - Select the Production Report and click the Ok button. The production report can also be printed from the Quick Launch.
Step 3 - Select the Daily Food Cost Report and click the Ok button. The production report can also be print from the Quick Launch.
It is best to print the Daily Food Cost Report after ALL meals have been produced for the day, since each time it prints, it will include all produced meals for that given date.
Production – A Quick Guide
Step 1 - From the Quick Launch click Production.
Step 2 - Select the Serving Date and the Meal.
Step 3 - If the menu changed, click the Meal Planning button - on the <New Recipe> line add a new recipe, and/or right click on an existing recipe to remove a recipe.
Step 4 - If the Menu Production Worksheet has not been printed, click Print and select the Menu Production Worksheet. Post this for the food service technicians to record food used and leftover portions.
Step 5 - After Meal Service and POS are completed, then begin production.
Step 6 - Use the Menu Worksheet, which has been completed by the service technicians to produce meals. Select the Production button from the Quick Launch.
Step 7 - Select the Recipe and click Produce, and enter the Quantity and Partial Quantity used. This will issue food from inventory.
Step 8 - After you enter the Quantity Used, check the Quantity Remaining. This should be the same as the physical count remaining that was noted on the Menu Production Worksheet.
Step 9 - Click the Add button to add additional items or substitution items, and add leftovers from a previously produced recipe.
Step 10 - Complete the Applicable Serving Records (offer vs serve portion of the Production report) section at the top by entering the number of servings of prepared, un-served, extra sales, seconds, etc. If there are counts typed in Un-Served, then type that number again in the Leftovers Produced section. The leftovers can be planned for future use or discarded. Repeat Steps 1 - 10 until finished with all of the recipes.
Step 11 - When all of the recipes have been produced, click Meal Counts to enter the number of meals served. The white boxes are the planned meal counts. The yellow are the served meal counts.
Step 12 - Print the Production Report and the Daily Food Cost Report. Double check that all items used in production are listed on the report and that they all have the correct quantity used.