Dietary Substitutions
Dietary substitutions let you automatically adjust meals for clients with specific dietary needs. The system flags or swaps meals on delivery reports so kitchen staff and drivers know what to prepare.
Substitutions are more commonly referred to as Dietary Needs in other modules of the software.
How Substitutions Work
The substitution system connects three things together:
Client dietary needs — Each client can have one or more dietary needs on their profile (e.g., Vegetarian, Gluten-Free, No Beef).
Dish substitution rules — Each dish can have rules linked to specific dietary needs, defining what happens when that dish is served to a client with that need.
Automatic matching — When a meal is served that contains a dish triggering a client's dietary need, the system takes the configured action.
Two Substitution Actions
Each substitution rule uses one of two actions:
Alert / Omit Item
The dietary need is flagged on delivery reports (Kitchen Sheet, Route Sheet, Meal Labels). Kitchen staff sees the alert and manually adjusts the client's meal. This is the most common option and works well for most organizations.
Substitute Meal
The client's product for the day is swapped to the designated substitution meal for that product category. This changes what the client receives entirely — instead of a flagged adjustment, they get a completely different meal.
Most organizations use Alert / Omit Item for most or all substitution types. Substitute Meal works well for organizations with choice meals configured as products (e.g., a "Vegetarian Meal" product alongside a "Regular Meal" product) or if your organization has a designated bland diet type.
Setting Up Substitutions
Setting up dietary substitutions involves four steps:
Step 1: Create Dietary Need Types
Navigate to Menus > Dietary Needs and add the dietary need types your organization supports (e.g., Vegetarian, Gluten-Free, No Beef, Lactose Intolerant). Dietary Needs can also be managed from the Administration section of the software.
Step 2: Add Substitution Rules to Dishes
On each dish's detail page, add substitution rules that link a dietary need to an action (Omit Item or Substitute Meal). For example, a "Pasta Bake" dish might have a Gluten-Free rule set to Alert / Omit Item.
Step 3: Configure Substitution Meals per Product
If you plan to use the Substitute Meal option for any automatic substitutions, designate the Substitute Meal type. Navigate to Menus > Calendaring settings > Edit products.Using the checkbox options, designate a Substitution Meal — the default meal used when a Substitute Meal action is triggered.
Step 4: Enable Automatic Substitutions
Navigate to Menus > Settings > Calendaring settings and enable Automatic substitutions. Once enabled, the system applies substitution rules when generating reports.
Substitutions on Reports
Substitutions appear on several reports throughout the system:
- Day detail report — Shows dietary overrides per client for the day's menu.
- Delivery day reports (Kitchen Sheet, Route Sheet, Meal Labels) — When generating these from the Deliveries page, select the automatic substitutions option to see dietary needs filtered for the actual menu items being served that day.
Using automatic substitutions on reports gives kitchen staff a cleaner view — they only see dietary alerts relevant to that day's menu, not all of a client's dietary needs.