The Magic of Menu Cycles
Chef Kate, Director of Culinary Brand, and Derek, Chief Technology & Marketing Officer at Meriwether Godsey, on how menu cycles actually get built, updated, and rolled out across a multi-account operation.
Featuring 
Format Recorded webinarTopics Culinary Resource Planning, Onsite Foodservice
Format Recorded webinarTopics Culinary Resource Planning, Onsite FoodserviceAbout this session
Menu cycles are where a foodservice brand either holds together or quietly comes apart. Build them on paper and every update becomes a re-typing exercise; build them on shared data and a change to one recipe reaches every account, every label, and every cost report at once.
In this session, Chef Kate and Derek from Meriwether Godsey walk through their cycle-planning process three years into working on one source of truth for recipes and production data - how the corporate cycle gets built during the slower summer, how nutrition and allergen data flows downstream, who is allowed to change what, and where the creative time comes back.
Key takeaways
- Why Meriwether Godsey treats menu cycles as a brand and people discipline, not just a planning chore.
- How one source of truth for recipes and production data underpins cycle planning across many accounts.
- The corporate-cycle workflow: building over the slower summer, then rolling out at the start of term.
- How nutrition and allergen data flows from a recipe into downstream systems - and into costing.
- Updating a recipe by copying it and swapping an ingredient, instead of rebuilding it from scratch.
- Access control: who can change a recipe locally versus what stays governed by vendor data.
- Allergen visibility in the mobile app, so families and students can see what is in today's dish.
Transcript
Full transcript
auto-generated from the recording · click to expand0:05Well, we're covered, I think coast to coast. I'm in Arizona. Most of my galley friends are in California. Kate, where are you at again? I'm in Amherst, Virginia. Amherst, Virginia. And Derek, Charlottesville, Virginia. Oh, that's right. You're right down the way from our our friend Marcus. Yeah. Okay. We are right at the top of the hour. I'm gonna give it like one more minute for some stragglers to get comfortable, and then we'll go ahead and kick this thing off.
0:31Thanks for everybody hopping in a little bit early. We'll get you in and out of here on time, I promise. We're just discussing the finer points of things we like to cook. Derek's a pizza man. And Kate, what? You said soups. You're into soups. Did you We didn't land on like, what's your go-to soup, you know? Wow. See now that's a really tough one. I'd say probably my all time favorite is gonna be a roasted apple and butternut squash.
0:58Mm-Hmm. maybe with local sausage if I really wanna spice it up a bit, but that's probably my all time favorite. That's very fall weather. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Which is what we're kind of experiencing here on the west coast, although they've got fancy names for it now, like atmospheric rivers, and so it's of weirdness. Alright, it is 1201. I'm gonna go ahead and kick this thing off. We will start by introducing our friends from Merriweather Godsey, but just a couple of housekeeping items.
1:25My name is Jason Gunn, for all of you that I don't know, heading up marketing here at Galley Solutions. And obviously you see my friend Kate and Derek from Merriweather Godsey. Just to set the table for us today, pun intended. we will be talking about the magic of menu cycles, and I've been having a lot of good time with these folks talking about how menu cycles work and what we're doing at Galley to support the effort while Merriweather Godsey kind of blazes the trail, bringing some automation and leveraging data to make that happen.
1:56So, we'll obviously talk about Merriweather Godsey and who they are, what they do, and we'll get into the nitty gritty of the menu cycles and how they're managed. So, I wanna start, first we will introduce chef Kate, if you don't mind. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got to Merriweather Godsey favorite color, we know your favorite soup.
2:21Wow, that's a really long journey, but I've been in food service for probably a little over 35 years now. I've done a little bit of everything around that. Restaurants, hotels private country clubs, that sort of thing. And was really looking for a better balance in the culinary world with my personal life and that sort of thing. And got introduced to Merwe Gotze 21 years ago. Oh, wow.
2:44I've been with them that long and have traveled the gamut there. Started out as a manager in training and now am director of culinary brand, helping to lead the training for all our culinarians menu planning, some of the menu cycles, recipe testing, teaching that helping keep our chops up to speed on our cuts and how we make sauces and create things. And as well as keeping what does Merriweather godsey look like in the contract downing world?
3:11What distinguishes us? What shows us apart from that? the people are at the heart of us and that's the reason that Merriwether Gotti's kind of kept Kate engaged for so many years, is it's been a fantastic journey for all kinds of things through food. I started out in some at a military school, went through healthcare all the way up to our fine dining restaurant, and then on into more of a training kind of teaching role, Touching on many aspects of culinary.
3:40And Derek, I have to I have to ask you to introduce us to your role as the chief Technology and marketing officer at Merriweather Godsey. Yes. I don't see those two things paired together. And, as a marketing guy and a technology guy, I'm very in love with that. So what does role mean and how did you arrive at Merriweather Godsey? Yeah, no, it's, it's a great role.
4:03And, one of those things that feels kind of custom suited to the, to the career path I've taken, I started out going to school to be a journalist, which I never was. And then promptly became a technology person. So I was doing multimedia development and art and design and all of those things sort of balled together in the late nineties with the.com boom and working for a number of dot com companies.
4:35And since then starting in the mid two thousands started consulting full-time and eventually landed Merriweather Godsey is one of my consulting clients and came on about a year ago. So I've compared to Kate a very short timer, but I've really enjoyed my time here. That's awesome. Well thanks for giving us a little bit of background on your roles and responsibilities. Kate, maybe help us just better understand Merriweather Godsey, who they serve, how you guys approach contract dining from your perspective, what what's to know.
5:09Sure. well, we've been in business since 1985, so again, almost 40 years there. We've been providing, and we like to look at it as providing and helping to create community through food. We really focus on that connection of, how much food plays into people's lives and the identity of each one of our individual clients that we serve. We provide contract dining and catering for premier independent schools for private colleges and for businesses.
5:38I'd say probably about 80% of our partners are actually in the educational realm. And so that's where we focus a lot, in everything from K through 12 up through college even some professional adult learning environments where we work with artists that are there to learn and create. So it's a gamut that covers all of that. we do everything from, breakfast, lunch and dinner to snacks, to coffee bars.
6:05We have some retail settings as well in that. And, I think what the biggest part of us, and at the heart of what Merriweather Godsey is our 10, our 12 core values. Actually, we have a, at the heart is that love food people and serving others, and the people is the center of that. everything that we do and focus is not only our customers as people, but our employees as people.
6:27What tools do we provide them? what experience do we provide them? How do we create fun around food? What do we teach them to grow as well? And then all that translates into what you eat on the plate because you get that heart and that love of what people are doing down to what's being served in the dining rooms as well as a real focus on preparing, fresh scratch food.
6:49We work with many local purveyors. We get local produce in season, keep that ever changing on our menus. And again, making those connections, which is part of community. How do we spend our money in our communities and how do we connect not only again, our clients and our customers, but our employees with the farmers that we're buying from? What's the story? How do we get that food there?
7:10How do we make that connection and really kind of honoring our food and our people through that process? best thing about it, and one of the cool things from the seat that I'm in is that about 60% of our whole company are women. from employees to senior leadership to board of directors and inclusivity. we are a extremely inclusive company that bridges that gamut all the way across so that, again, people are who we are.
7:39When you talk about food, you think, oh, everybody's gonna talk about the food first. Well, the food is great, but without our people, we don't have much there. So I'll just add to, that from the core values, that's one of the things that really attracted me to the company is having done consulting from a branding standpoint for a number of years, I saw a lot of companies that had core values that really weren't aligned with who they were.
8:05And that's one thing that just spending time around folks from mg, they sort of live and breathe those things. So Yeah, it is very apparent from my interactions with MG and our mutual friend Marcus, our chief customer officer, has a history with Merriweather zi. So it's great to see how that's infiltrated our organization as well. Derek, switching gears a little bit. Yeah.
8:27Can you talk about technology at MG and what that technology stack looks like? I'm sure a lot of our friends in the audience are having to face some similar challenges and, you know Sure. And has technology and marketing and is and is title. It. It sounds like you guys have a unique approach to bringing technology, not just to your company to manage, but the clients you serve as well.
8:51Can you tell us a little about that? So, once again, I've been here for a year or so. A lot of other people have built these things, and I've gotten to inherit and sort of make some improvements along the way, I hope. But certainly I'm standing on the shoulders of giants of people who've, who've built these systems. But to to summarize, galley is a, is a core piece.
9:14Partnership started with you all about three years ago now, I think. Sounds about right. And that's really a core to the single source of truth in and around all of our recipes and production data and all of that. we've got some additional systems that we sit alongside Galley today. One of them we call the Hub, which is essentially our central data store for everything.
9:40So we're pulling data from Galley from some of our current menu cycle systems, which we'll talk about more detail later, I'm sure. And that's where we aggregate all of that data so that we have a central hub that can provide data in and around what meals are being served, at what accounts what day. And with any ingredient, allergen, et cetera information that we need.
10:04We feed that out to a few different sources. One is a custom menu display system that we call Pretty Menu that is in almost all of our accounts displaying what's on the lines that day and what's, what's up for each of the day parts that we're serving. breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then we also have a, my Menu app that we developed that is being fed by that same hub so that folks can pick up their native iOS or Android app, see what's on the menu for today.
10:39And then lastly, menu Cycle, which is gonna be, central. What we're talking about here is a system that started out as a paper process, years and years ago, turned into word Docs transformed into Excel docs, and now is a really pretty robust, extensively scripted Excel environment for all of the menus, period by period. And all of that is being feeding back into Hub, but also being fed by galley in terms of product pricing or ingredient and recipe pricing and nutritional information, et cetera. So, Yeah. And, spoilers menu Planner is making its way into the galley solution largely in partnership, with our friends at Merriweather Godsey, which, I love the fact that you guys are open to partnering in that way.
11:33I've been around software mm-Hmm. technology and food service for a long time. And it's, it's something that you don't see a lot in our industry is technology purpose built for our industry, you know? Mm-Hmm. Which G has really done and leaned into, and you guys have been a great partner in that. so I definitely want to get into the nuts and bolts of the menu cycle.
11:52Sure. I'll just set some people here and then we'll kind of bring down the presentation and just have a chat amongst us around how you guys think about it. But, for the uninitiated, getting menus planned, organized, systematized, and then shared consistently, across your brands and the clients that you serve, tends to be a large challenge that is not unique to Merriweather Godsey.
12:18I think, you see it across many of the higher education K through 12, any contract, dining establishment, and there's a lot of different people involved in order to make that happen. my summation is that there's really not been that one easy way to kind of bring all those things together, and you guys are really at the forefront of helping us figure that out.
12:40So maybe tell me from your point of view, what is a menu planner technology aside? Like, what are, what is the problem that you're trying to solve with a couple of specific details around how you guys are solving it. first and foremost the cycle itself is great because it actually gives time back to operators. So it allows at a corporate level for us to create a framework around that.
13:06And in general, a cycle menu is literally a series of menus that repeat after a specific amount of time. So the items on the menu change each day, but whether you choose a four week cycle or a five week cycle, at the end of that time, you repeat that same framework. and one of the things that we're really working to solve is how do you keep that fresh?
13:27How do you keep that not only fresh and new and exciting and seasonal things coming through and staying on trend, but then als also, how do you ensure brand integrity? And how do you reduce the amount of office time your chefs need to have and get them where they should be, as in teaching their employees and out preparing the food? And so trying to solve for that piece, and again, kind of a source of truth for us it really started at that base and technology of creating a true recipe source of truth.
13:58And so Galley provided us that solution of where we could house all of our recipes, and then even tie that all the way down to the ingredients that we're provi purchasing from our purveyors. so that, again, we have information on nutritionals. We can provide specific allergen information, all that, and use that recipe base to then create our menu cycles. and trust that, again, for brand integrity, if you eat in one of our accounts that's down in Richmond versus one that's up in dc, you're gonna get the same butternut squash soup, or you're gonna get the same lasagna, you're gonna get the same eggplant dish.
14:33So that stays the same. The recipe gives our cooks that roadmap. And typically in building recipes and building menu cycles, chefs spend a lot of time on paper. And again, then how does that get translated uniquely all the way across down to prep list and purchasing lists and that sort of thing. And so this whole process of adding the menu cycle into those other pieces that we're used to doing as a chef it's just one more step that makes that integrity and helps us be able to communicate it.
15:02So at a corporate level, we can, we can choose that, and then we share that with all of our accounts as to what that's gonna look like. And it's not a lot of emails back and forth, it's literally one system. They can log in, they have access but then they can also localize it as they need to too. Mm-Hmm. choosing from any of our 10,000 recipes that we have in Galley, that's our only kind of huge parameter, is it has to be recipe that we've put in the system that again, flows through with all that information.
15:29But then again, how do you keep that fresh and do that on a, on a timely a manner and get it to the people who need it. So how far in advance are you putting menus together? So going into the summer, how long has that menu been? I'll, I'll do another food pond. How long has that been baked? So we start it's, that's a really good question.
15:53We send down over the summer, 'cause most of our accounts sort of slow down or do something a little bit different in the summer, we send down basically a corporate cycle over that time period that comes out the first part of fall. And ours happens to work on 13, four week periods. so we send sort of that base down then and during the summer, each one of our individual accounts can then take that cycle and customize it to what they're serving.
16:18So certainly a college that's serving, an all male population or has seven or eight different concepts in it, like a pizza station and an action station. And a grill station is gonna be a little bit different than our lower schools where we're serving, basically an entree with the vegetarian option and a couple sides. So they can take that larger cycle and then customize it to what they need.
16:39And then periodically we send down updates. Maybe there's a, we do, company initiatives. We do a focus around the earth week. We actually do Earth Month, so we'll send down specific menus around that, or global themes, holiday celebrations, so it can be updated in that process. but typically every four weeks or every period, they're creating that new cycle from our base and then customizing individually at the accounts for what they need. Mm-Hmm.
17:07Tons of moving pieces. So as a, the person that has to move that data around. And then I imagine, Derek, you're pushing some level of detail, into a finance system, or you're having to keep track right, of food costs and report out on that. What are some challenges that you guys have experienced and, how does mini cycle helping you guys get ahead of it and keep those things consistent?
17:31Yeah, for sure. So, you've got a couple of challenges. One is the initial planning stage. You're looking for your per plate costs and trying to figure out how many folks you're gonna have in that particular server at that particular time. And adjusting for, in a lower school, things like kids being out on a, on a field day or field trip or something like that.
17:52And then you're managing to a per plate cost. and Cycle helps us to do that because one of the things that we're doing in our current system is pulling that pricing data down from Galley, having that available so that every time an alternate is chosen, as Kate was pointing out, we give them the cycle and the cycle has a good base for that period, but we want them to tune that to their community, understand what it is their, that particular community's comfort foods that they love and that they're huge fans of.
18:28We wanna make sure that those get expressed there. So they're making those changes and seeing that pricing in real time. And then we have a number of tools that, okay, planning's great, but, plans change, right? So something isn't available, doesn't, doesn't show up on the delivery truck. They've gotta make changes. We're having to make those changes in Galley so that a, as Kate said, if the recipe isn't in galley, we're not serving it, so they need to make a new recipe.
18:55We get that in galley so that all the nutritional information, allergen information flows through to those other systems I described. But also from a, from a costing standpoint they might need to make those, those changes if the price of chicken goes up, or eggs as we've seen over the last year are going up 84%, right? Maybe they wanna make an adjustment there, they can do that through the system.
19:19And then we have two more tiers. One is, as those purchases are coming in off the truck, we've got spin downs that are being executed by the directors so they can see exactly what, how they're tracking to budget. And then lastly allocations. So after everything's done, we're reallocating all those monies to the various programs. And that's all flowing up into our accounting system. Sage.
19:46That's amazing. So you guys are using Sage as your kind of back in there. Yeah. I want to turn the conversation over to people. Kate you and I have been around a few kitchens and I know that when I was managing kitchens the idea of having such, strict rules and governance around what I can buy, how I can buy it, then if something, like the idea that something gets substituted, now I gotta go into a thing and, update a spreadsheet somewhere so that I can have like that real time food cost.
20:15It sounds a little daunting. Is it, is it as complicated as it sounds since you're using, this is a loaded question since you're using Galley. but also what's the adoption like, as you bring on new people or you bring on new clients, and you kind of show this to them, and are they embracing it or you having a do a lot of training and cultural kind of pushing with them, what's, what's that look like?
20:38So first I'll say, chefs we're all stubborn and we all have pretty big egos too. So once we get through and show really the value that it adds from a time standpoint, I've had a lot of folks who have joined our company just recently and newly, and they're like, oh my gosh, this is so great to have, again, a system that helps me do that.
20:58As chefs, most of us would much rather be in the kitchen touching food and working with people than managing paper and shifting that stuff around. And it does sound a little daunting, but it really isn't that hard. because we're using Gallium because of the technology that folks like Marcus and Derek have brought to us, we actually get an EDI feed from our purveyor.
21:18So from our, we use performance food groups, and we actually get an EDI feed that puts in, all of our ingredients. So the items we're buying down to the vendor level. And so all of that information is tied to that. We get an update every night. So there's not a whole lot that the individual operator has to do to change that. It comes through, thank goodness, corporately, and we get adjustments and we'll find out this has been shorted.
21:40And it's a very easy process in galley for us to go in and update that and change. it's extremely easy to change recipes in there. it's as simple as making a copy of your current one and changing out an ingredient. It literally takes two to three minutes. And when you think about what that used to take on paper or in an Excel system, or even in some other systems we've used in the past that weren't that intuitive, it takes a lot of time.
22:04And that's where you spend all your time. And by the time you finish that, have you gotten the information to the kitchen? And is the product being made right? And is the information translated? so it's really great. And that's what I meant, in the beginning when I said the tools we give our people, it really gives us time back where we should be focusing.
22:21Mm-Hmm. the fact that everything talks to each other and is connected gives a lot of security in that I go to one place and I don't have to go to seven or eight different places to make changes at literally a push of the button going through our menu hub, I get all of my production records, all of my recipes printed out. I get literally a shopping list that tells me, okay, go walk your shelves.
22:44Here's what you need for the week to purchase your products to make these recipes. And so a lot of that has taken away some of that arduous paperwork in the kitchen. And it's freed up time again for each one of our operators to really work with the folks in the kitchen. it's given our chefs a little bit more freedom, even because those basics are taken care of.
23:06So when they want to create a new recipe, all they've gotta do is test that and send it in. We even have a, an automated form on our, on our site in our internal dashboard. They send that in, we get the recipe in. And because it's so easy to do in galley, literally it's usually less than 24 hours. They've got a new recipe that they can use and test and, it has all the information they need from costing down to the allergens so they can communicate that to our customers.
23:35I was gonna ask you about the creativity piece in, my experience when you find yourself in the kitchen and you're bogged down with a lot of that paperwork and nuance of, making sure everything's consistent and I gotta get the food cost down, it almost kind of stifles creativity in a sense, because it becomes harder to make something new or to localize something.
23:58Whereas it sounds you've got a little bit more creativity and flexibility because you've centralized everything. Is that fair to Yeah, absolutely. And it frees up time. It frees up a lot of time. again, it's, it's, probably what used to take, I would say, four to five hours a week has been literally reduced to two and a half to three hours if you're staying up on that planning and producing those things every week.
24:25And so imagine that gives me at least two to three more hours to play in the kitchen, as I would say, or to have that creative space. So I wanna, I wanna write this down. So how many hours do you think you are saving? I would say probably at least two and a half off of our original planning process for that for sure.
24:44That's amazing. It was an old system. We had every, so in our old system, we'd create the menu cycle, but then we would have to actually go in every recipe, open it up, scale it, print it, close it, so a lot of manual work and producing production sheets and that sort of thing. and then certainly old school as chefs, we take a legal pad and, you'd make your columns of, I need dairy, I need meat, I need, and then you walk around your shelves and write all that down.
25:10Well, galley creates that for us now based off of our recipes. So I'm literally taking a sheet that's already created and just going through and saying, okay, no, I've got enough milk. I've gotta, and then I place my order. So how many recipes do you have in galley today? Like, you gave me a number before and I remember it was a little staggering. What Was it? About 10,000.
25:30That's bananas. Could you imagine 10,000 like word documents, recipe cards, how ugly those red binders would be? Well, that's what we literally used to have is just binders and binders and binders, and you had 'em alphabetized or categorized. And then with that, the problem is the scaling and how do you get that scaling correct? 'cause we have communities that serve 25 and we have communities that sell, serve 1200.
25:56So to take that same recipe and have to do the scaling of that and again, the reprinting and that sort of thing. So it's, it's a, an invaluable tool for us. Well, I imagine maybe Derek, you've got a view into this, the accuracy of your food costs and where the waste and all these things are has to improve dramatically because now you're not kind of fingering the wind to your point, Kate, I'm gonna scale it so I need about, eh, and then I'll just, up whatever I feel and who knows.
26:24And then you're doing this like kind of theoretical inventory, right? Yeah. Purchases in versus what we sold. how has that, how has this all affected the accuracy of your reporting and your comfort with your inventory these days? Well, the menu cycle as we have it today too, part of that is scaling each individual recipe that we're serving at a particular surgery for that day and for that community.
26:48So we might be preparing half the number of vegan dishes that we're preparing the meat entree. And over time, now there's a record of that by doing the cycle, it's not just sort of a gut feel. We know not only how many we prepared or thought we were gonna need, but how many we did prepare. And folks are able to get more and more accurate at that estimation over time.
27:09And then, you've sort of hinted that we're working on some tools similar to this inside of Galley with Galley today. And that's one of the things we're really looking at is how can we make even better use of that historical data so that we can trend that and help everybody is terrible estimators, from a software development side of things, we, sort of joke that, when you're at, whenever you estimate the size of a, of a task you're gonna, double it or have it, and then you'll probably be closer to what you're actually gonna take on that the, on that particular item.
27:44So the same stands true this way. We have some real actionable data we can look at over time and see, really how many corn dogs that they eat that day, or how many salad, you know beautiful composed salads REIT and that lower school we know exactly what they've, they've been up to. And that gives the chefs a lot more information when they're making that planning.
28:10How many people are involved in the menu cycle planning? Kate? I don't, excuse me. I don't think you're ne necessarily making decisions in a vacuum. I imagine there's some dieticians involved. There might be some constraints involved, like what's that ecosystem look like? Right. And that's a, it varies, I'll have to say typically from a creative standpoint and that sort of stuff, we take feedback from all of our accounts too.
28:37'cause we have, trained executive chefs and chefs in all of our accounts. And so we get that information too. who kind of crafts that together. It's a team of about four or five of us that actually, vet that and decide what makes sense and what's on trend and what are old favorites and what are signatures for Merriweather godsey. And then yes, we do have nutritional review from dieticians to again, make sure we're, we're doing what we need for our school communities and we're, we're ba doing that balance.
29:05We've always said, a little bit of m and ms and a nice fresh apple and we are, we're balanced. And so how do we provide popularity in our menus and get those things that kids are really looking for and also then provide what parents are looking for in that same process. So we keep all of that in mind when we do that.
29:23And it fluctuates again, depending on where we're going. So for an independent individual account, excuse me, we involve that whole team there. So we would involve the director, we involve the chef that's there, we talk to the employees there. We also get a lot of information from that community when we start to set up there. And that's what we use craft. So it's, it's ever evolving.
29:47How do you guys account for a menu item in different locations where the ingredients might be the same but source from a different vendor? I think you touched on this a little bit, but maybe just kind of hone in on that a little bit more for us. So we can do that by area through the galley system too. We can create vendors for each different accounts and so they can select typically we actually assign it to them 'cause there's permissions that are available through Galley.
30:15And so we can do for areas, we can do it for a level of accessibility, like who can actually update a recipe or who can actually change, core information there that comes from the vendors. so that can be done locally from that through permissions and we can set that up in our side and then through Galley they pull that information in from different vendors or we're using a particular breadstick at one account.
30:39We tie that to that account and tie it to the recipe they're using. The recipe that shows up on our menu cycle may just stay garlic breadsticks, but we may have one that only our accounts in New York are using. And then maybe another one that our accounts in the south are using. And we can tie that through to the recipe that they select then to put on their menu.
30:57Another component that we run into as well is the recipe side of that, where we have specific restrictions in an account. An account might be completely gluten-free or completely seed or nut free, and another may not. So over time we also have variations on those recipes that we can target to a specific account location to make sure that they're serving foods that are with dietary restrictions and allergen restrictions.
31:23Yeah, that's gotta be a major component. Right. What are some measures that you guys put in place to make sure that you're adhering to some of those, maybe not just in the menuing part of the activity, but in the kitchen to make sure that you guys are checking off some of those boxes? Is that a big part of that process too? Yeah, it's a huge part.
31:40And again, it's something that Galley has really helped us with. we get reporting that comes out from that. All of our recipes actually have the allergens listed on them as well. So it's on the allergens, it's also then on our production sheets. And then we have a report that we can pull out of galley that lists the menu items again with all of the allergen information there.
32:01So there's a lot of different touch points we can restrict purchasing if we need to. And only we have some vendors who actually fall into that are a nut free, seed free vendor. And so we tie those products to those accounts. And then, as Derek was saying, we create those recipes so then when that chef goes to order the things that they shouldn't have in the account aren't even available on their list to order.
32:23So that keeps them out of the kitchen and makes it a safer environment that Way. And then downstream we present signage that's updated. so there's clings with any sort of allergens listed on those at every station. And because the fact that we have that live data coming from galley into our hub system and then going out to our mobile apps that's always instantly up to date as well.
32:50So even if you don't necessarily have a location that's free of a certain allergen, those allergens are listed on that mobile app. So the parents can be, looking out for the kiddos and telling 'em what to grab at the lunch at lunch that day. Or with our older populations their high schoolers and college kids, they're making those choices on their own.
33:16Okay. Interesting. I have a couple of comments here in the q and a box, both from anonymous attendees, so I don't know who it is. So I don't know if the same person made the comment and asked the question, but the first comment, which I'm gonna share selfs servingly, why didn't Google and Bone Appetit use you all when I was working there? This is a game changer, so I'll take that.
33:37The follow up to it was how does Galley handle grab and go items? Can it print labels? I know. Is that so the short answer is yes, we do all of the time. I just, I didn't know if that's something that you guys are doing as well. 'cause I know we can customize those labels and make 'em easy for you guys to print out. We don't yeah, necessarily have the label printer, but we can send the data to the label printer. Is that how you guys do it?
34:01So from our food standpoint, it's great 'cause we can create a label that covers everything. not only a customer's looking for, but also usually our health inspectors and that sort of thing. So we can get every, all the ingredients are listed on the label, the nutritional information, and even the allergens. And we even have a space on there where we've got sort of a best eaten by date that goes on there.
34:22Those come right out of all that information that's in Galley. And Derek can talk a little bit more about the formatting. I know how great it looks when it's on the package, but Yeah, so, we played around with the label printers as well as some more standard labels. We're buying off the shelf labels and letting folks print them kind of as they need. And we found that also gives us a little bit more control over some of the branding that we're doing on the labels.
34:45So we've done it both ways, but in the latter where we're actually using a custom label format, we have done some scripting to grab that information out of Galley and present it inside of standard sort of Avery type labels that are spec for use with food packaging. Oh, okay. Cool. So you guys can just like grab it right out of there. Mm-Hmm. We feel comfortable that it's accurate because the chefs are kind of commanded to update everything in real time and Right.
35:15Boy, isn't it nice that it's all in one neat tidy little system? The game changer, really Game Changer. Yeah. And we've even integrated that with we have some retail locations as well and we've integrated that with that as well so that those labels have barcode scanners and are barcodes for scanners to read so that they can do self-checkout, things like that.
35:38Well, excellent. I see us kind of winding down here, so please, folks out in Zoom land, I know you're all nodding your head agreeing, feeling the pain, appreciating even jealous that Merriweather gauze is taking it this far. One of the questions out there as we kind of think about wrapping up is what are some existing challenges with menu cycles that you guys are still trying to tackle, whether it's technical or procedural, what's, what's still yet to be solved?
36:07Ooh, probably the customization piece of that. and I think more for us a little bit in contract dining, we like to offer people tons and tons of choices. And how do you get all of that in one system? So let's think about something like a salad bar or grains and green station or, maybe we've got a top your own burrito bar or something like that.
36:33So we're still working on the best way and galley's helping us with this on how we get all of that information in there so that our local accounts have the opportunity to pick and choose what, maybe from a list of six toppings, maybe they only wanna offer three. So how do they get all of three of those on the menu and get real time costing for it?
36:53The same with like a, an all you can eat station, like a grains and greens. How do we menu that out within a cycle and then have the options but have the the easy ability to switch and change items and again, get real costing kind of for that. So we're still in part of the development with that. And that's one of the things to solve for, 'cause bars as we call 'em, are big part of what we do in contract dining.
37:17And then just how do we keep it easy for our chefs and how do we keep it again, giving them the time we want them to have in the kitchen, but still having all the information. And I'll let Derek talk to a little bit of the technical parts that we're still working on. So, Sure. one of the things that a cycle does is pre, it provides a little extra time because it's already preset, but like I said, we want the chefs and the accounts to tune that to the communities that they serve and make it feel like it's custom made for them.
37:53And so with that, we have the alternate system. Alongside that, we have a bunch of standards. So we have standards around types of the number of composed salads and all of these different things that the, at each service and how the complexity of those standards is really hard to translate into a system with just some alternatives. So part of that is training and obviously our accounts and teams embrace those standards and want to adhere to them, but there is some complexity there.
38:25So that's something as we've been working with Galley for the past few months on this future g future Cycle product, is how do we incorporate the business rules or the standards that we have for a particular service in a flexible way so that when this new cycle product comes out, we'll be able to sort of infuse the menu cycle with options that all work and fit and alert them if something might be slightly out of standard and let them overrule things that because they have something special going on.
39:00And so all of that is being kind of version, two or three of it now here at Galley is being worked on to let creativity shine while still having that some control over what's getting served, making sure that it's done the MG way. Another question maybe for both of you, hard for me to answer, 'cause of course we'll take your money, but would you recommend this system for smaller meal prep business that is servicing a smaller set of clients?
39:31I would say yes. I would say absolutely. I think the value of even before we started exploring all the other things, the value of a central recipe hub or recipe house for everything to live in, and for us, again to tie that to the quality and the products that we wanted from that is invaluable. I think no matter what size business you have. Well, I appreciate the endorsement and yeah, from my perspective it's, it's fairly easy for us to get you some smaller skinnier down versions, and obviously Merriweather Godsey has a very complex, comprehensive organization and we can accommodate that fairly easily, but we can also have some simpler offerings for you as well.
40:17So feel free to reach out and obviously up here on the screen, I'm advertising our recipe first culinary operating system, which brings in all of these cool features like the recipe management and nutritionals and the labeling and the menu cycles and all the cool stuff that Kate and Derek have been so generous with their time to help highlight here with us today.
40:38Appreciate you guys making time for that. Any final closing thoughts for our friends out in Zoom land at home that you want to share that I didn't ask you about? I can't really think of any. No. I think bottom line a system is great and we've had the opportunity to develop a great partnership with Galley. So I think, as you explore what you're gonna do, look at a look at a great system. So mm-Hmm.
41:05Yeah, and I I would definitely hop onto the tail end of that and say from a partnership standpoint, that's something that I think has been, I've only been here a year, but I've talked to everybody who's been here since they started with Galley and it's held true since the beginning and still Old Street today that you guys have been great partners. And when we have a, have a question or have a problem, it's just a quick message away to get folks to hop on it or help us even just think through an issue and How we might approach it.
41:34Well certainly appreciate the endorsements there and I hope everybody at home can make some time to reach out to Kate and Derek if you have questions. And thanks for making time for us. Thanks, Jason. Kate. Thank you Derek. We'll talk soon. Sounds great. Appreciate guys. Alright, take care. Bye. Bye.