Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools reached out to PCS in the Spring of 2015 about finding a better way to manage a large volume of special diet requests. Child Nutrition Services staff were creating menus for over 900 students, taking into consideration 90 different allergies, food sensitivities and other dietary restrictions such as texture modifications. Our goal was to compare the ingredients for each menu item with the allergens and other factors identified for each student in order to generate custom menus and notifications for cafeteria managers and parents.

An automated process, utilizing specific keywords to capture a user defined number of allergens contained in ingredients listed on scanned product fact sheets, was created in order to speed the process.  Utilizing this solution, over 1,000 labels could be processed in two or three days.

Next, PCS created a scannable template for capturing Doctor’s Diet Orders. This template extracts student’s special dietary needs as well as allergy information. The Diet Order form signed by the students’ parents and physician. Integration with student information system allows the software to identify the student listed on the form, record full student information, and archive an image of the form for easy access when reviewing custom menus created for individual students or groups of students.

Students are classified into groups based on the complexity of the allergies. A simple allergy, such as ‘no fluid milk’, generates a letter of notification which is automatically emailed to the cafeteria manager, with instruction for an appropriate substitution. An automated letter is generated to the parent to confirm the special dietary plan has been entered into the system.  Multiple allergies may affect a few menu items and similar letters can be generated with listing of restricted items individually for each of these students. The software’s ability to process of less complex dietary needs through an automated email or print merge allows dietitians to focus on more complex allergy groups.

In addition to the function described above, PCS’ Special Diets solution provides tools to assist dietitians in creating custom menus.   It’s easy to generate reports displaying allowed and restricted items by selecting one or more allergies. A complete menu worksheet highlights restricted items in red text for each meal in the menu cycle. Using these reports and the color-coded menu, the dietitian can make recommendations for each day of the menu cycle. This custom menu plan is then emailed to the cafeteria manager(s) and/or parents, utilizing built-in automation.

Taking the guess work out of Special Diets allows Charlotte-Mecklenburg Child Nutrition Services to service an important need in their community at the same time as increasing participation in their meal plans.

Thanks to Jennifer Swan as contributing editor and PCS special diets guru.