Amy Harris Career Portfolio

Skill Area: Menu Writing

Assignment title: Menu Development

What I learned: To design menus that met the minimum nutritional needs of a population, to develop printed menus for both the foodservice staff and the consumer and to develop purchase data for the items necessary to complete the menu.  I also learned how detailed product specifications are but how necessary they are to make sure one receives the exact product they intended to order.

Reflection to assignment: This assignment introduced us to the language of how commercial food is packaged and sold to institutions. We were required to select the most economical packaging for our needs and to take our stock on hand into consideration when ordering.  This assignment also taught us about yield, factors that may affect yield and how to account for yield in order to have enough food on hand to serve the appropriate number of people.

Relevance to the profession: To control costs in any business one must have knowledge of how many servings a package contains and how many of those servings one will need to be able to accurately order the correct amount so as not to overbuy, but not to run short of product.  It’s also important to know the components of a production menu and a customer menu and be familiar with how they differ in terms of the layout and language used.