Menus

Menus let you build proper menus — a set lunch, an à la carte, an evening menu — out of named categories and dishes. Every dish you add carries its 14-allergen information, and those dishes (with their allergens) appear automatically on your Allergens matrix, so one place covers both your menu and an inspector’s allergen check. You’ll find Menus in the Production section of the sidebar. It’s available when the Menus module is on for your account.

Menus sit alongside the Allergens page, they don’t replace it. The Allergens page stays your flat list of dishes; Menus is the layer that groups them into set lunch, à la carte and so on.

What you’ll see

The landing page shows a card for each menu, with its type icon, name, a status dot (green when Active, grey when inactive), and a quick summary of its categories — e.g. Starters (5) · Mains (1). Click a card to open the menu’s editor. Use the search box in the header to filter by name or description.

Create a menu

1. Click New Menu.
2. Enter a Menu Name (e.g. “Spring À La Carte 2026”).
3. Pick a Menu Type — Breakfast, Set Lunch, À La Carte, Pre-Theatre, Evening, or Custom. The type is just a label and icon for organising your menus.
4. Optionally add a Description.
5. Leave Active (in use) on for a menu that’s currently being served. Turn it off to keep a menu without marking it live.
6. Click Create Menu. You’ll land straight in the menu editor.

To change any of these later, open the menu and choose Menu details from the ⋯ menu.

Add categories

A menu is organised into categories like Starters, Mains and Desserts.

1. In the menu editor, click Add Category.
2. Enter a Category Name and click Add.
3. Use the arrow buttons on each category to move it up or down, the pen to rename, and the bin to delete. Deleting a category also removes the items inside it.

Add an item

Inside any category, click Add item. You can build the item from scratch or start from a recipe.

1. (Optional) Start from a recipe. Search your recipes in the Start from a recipe box. Picking one fills in the name and price and suggests allergens derived from that recipe’s ingredients (see below). If nothing matches, just fill the item in by hand.
2. Enter the Item Name, an optional Description, and a Price.
3. Under Suitable for, tag the dish as Vegetarian, Vegan and/or Halal. Choosing Vegan ticks Vegetarian automatically.
4. Under Select Allergens, tick each of the 14 major allergens that applies. When you tick one, a Free-from available option appears beneath it — tick that if you can serve the dish with that allergen removed (e.g. a gluten-free version). Ticking Cereals with Gluten or Tree Nuts reveals a field to name the specific cereals or nuts.
5. Click Add Item.

Allergens suggested from a recipe

When an item is sourced from a recipe, Forkto reads the recipe’s ingredients and pre-ticks the allergens it recognises by matching ingredient names. The item is badged Derived from recipe — please confirm, and a note lists exactly which ingredient triggered each tick.

This is an assist, not a guarantee — you are responsible for confirming every allergen is correct before saving. Keyword matching can miss things or over-flag, so always review the ticks.

• If you change a suggested allergen, the badge becomes Overridden — differs from recipe.
• Re-sync allergens re-reads the recipe and refreshes the suggestions.
• Unlink detaches the item from the recipe so you manage its allergens by hand.
• If the recipe changes later, the item shows a Recipe updated flag — open it and re-sync to pull the latest allergens.

Add dishes from your library

If you’ve already recorded dishes on the Allergens page, click Add from library in a category to place several at once.

1. Search and tick the dishes you want (or use Select all).
2. Click Add. Each dish becomes a line on the menu, bringing its allergens with it.

Dishes already on this menu are hidden so you can’t add them twice. The allergens are copied onto the menu line at the moment you add them, so later edits to the library dish won’t silently change a printed menu. If the two drift apart, the line shows a Differs from library flag — open it and either Use library allergens or Update library dish to match.

Reorder, edit and delete

Each item row has arrows to move it up or down within its category, a pen to edit, and a bin to delete. Small icons on the row show whether an item came from a recipe or your library, its dietary tags, and its allergens.

See the allergen matrix for a menu

At the top of the editor, switch from Items to Allergen matrix to see this menu’s dishes as a grid, grouped by category, with a tick for every allergen. A filled dot (●) means the dish contains the allergen; a half dot (◐) means it contains it but a free-from alternative is available. Click Export PDF to download the matrix — handy for staff reference or an EHO inspection.

The same dishes also appear on the main Allergens page automatically, so your one allergen matrix always covers every menu.

Archive a menu

To take a menu out of use, open it and choose Archive menu from the ⋯ menu. The menu is hidden everywhere but kept with all its categories and items — nothing is permanently deleted.

Roles

Users with the auditor role can view menus and the allergen matrix but can’t add, edit, or delete anything.