Menu Versioning Software Eases Burden of Menu Labeling Laws

KANSAS CITY, Mo., April 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- With new FDA menu-labeling regulations pending, Trabon – the leading provider of Web-to-print restaurant technology – is well-positioned to help restaurants comply.

Trabon has added to MenuNet™, the leading online menu-management system, a gateway for nutritional information residing in any database, nutritional software program or recipe management system. MenuNet takes nutritional data from a single source and duplicates it across multiple menu versions, so restaurants can avoid the overwhelming tasks of manually adding nutritional information to menus and then individually proofing every version.

Launched in 1997, Trabon | MenuNet is one of the first menu versioning products of its kind. Its enhanced functionality creates efficiencies and competitive advantages for restaurant marketers and franchises that must soon include nutritional information on all menu versions.

"MenuNet reduces complexities created by the new menu-labeling laws to a manageable process with fewer errors, which lessens proofing time and costly reprints to correct mistakes," said Tim Trabon, CEO. "A single-source database of food items and pricing, MenuNet pulls locked-down descriptions to multiple menus and flows them into a base artwork template."

In so doing, MenuNet provides a means of easily changing a description – for example, by adding nutritional information – on multiple menus, menu boards or other collateral. Restaurants and franchisees can custom-build and order menus online with corporate-approved options for elements including featured items and pricing, then proof them on screen as they go.

Such process automation and real-time proofing provide greater control of branded materials, less human intervention and potential for errors and superior reporting. As a result, MenuNet helps restaurants and franchises protect their brands, better support multiple locations and get new materials to market faster than ever.

Because Trabon | MenuNet is a data-driven system, menu descriptions and nutritional information also can be mapped to culinary recipe systems to provide data consistency across the organization, with various output and analysis options beyond menus that include critical marketing deliverables such as POP materials and direct mail pieces.

Restaurant marketers who use MenuNet can access dashboard data on everything from menu pricing and item trends, to ingredient reports for supply chain forecasting. MenuNet also can accurately feed and update data in real-time to electronic mediums such as online ordering systems, mobile applications and localized online menu pricing on consumer websites.

SOURCE Trabon Companies