ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Horizon Software International, the innovative leader in K-12 food service technology and online school payments, is launching new system features that will help school districts ensure their menus comply with the new meal patterns and nutrient standard regulations imposed by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

With additional reimbursement money riding on compliance with the new regulations, its critical that school nutrition programs ensure their menus meet the new requirements and that students take the food items needed to qualify for a reimbursable meal, says Amy Huff, SNS, vice president of Marketing at Horizon. Our software now makes it easy for them to do so.

Horizons menu planning and nutrition analysis software will allow child nutrition programs to build menus based on the meal pattern components to ensure that the proper amounts of meats/meat alternates, fruits, vegetable subgroupings, grains, and milk are being offered. With the click of a button, Horizons system will compare the schools planned menus against the USDAs new daily and weekly standards for meal pattern and nutrition to identify any missing components or nutrients that are out of compliance.

The software also allows for a cost-per-plate goal to be identified, and then compares the cost of the planned menus against the cost-perplate goal as the menus are being built.

Offering nutritious meals to students is imperative, and keeping the cost of these meals as low as possible is also important, says Randy Eckels, president of Horizon. Our goal is to help foodservice directors successfully manage their operation while serving the needs of their students.

Horizons POS system will allow cashiers to quickly ring up each meal component to ensure the student is taking the required components, eliminating cashier error in identifying a reimbursable meal. For experienced cashiers, the system provides the flexibility to allow the cashier to identify that a meal is reimbursable by pressing a meal key rather than ringing up each component.

Horizons Menu Planner/Nutrition Analysis and POS systems are integrated with its other tools that help districts increase participation, manage cost, and communicate to parents, such as Healthy Reimbursable Meal Vending , SourceBoard digital signage, MyPaymentsPlus online payment system, Inventory Management, and more.

Horizon is always a step ahead in the industry, says Ed Wilkins, director of Student Nutrition Services at San Francisco Unified School District.The functionality they have provided to us will make it much easier to plan our menus and prove compliance with the new regulations.

The new system features are currently being beta tested in thirteen districts across the country, from a one-site private school to a 700+ school district. The new software will be available to all districts in June.

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New Tools Will Assist School Child Nutrition Programs in Complying with the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act