Susan & Bob's Menu Planning Software

Why Use Menu Planning Software?

Food planning and preparation is the biggest challenge for any group organizing an extended duration trip. Camping van tours, backpacks, and river trips don't often have the option of using a restaurant for meals; the organizers have to find a way to feed their group, frequently in a primative wilderness setting. Arranging food for a large group can be extremely time-consuming unless done efficiently. It requires menu planning, food purchasing, sorting, repackaging, and obtaining a field commissary (dishes, pots, stove, coolers, etc.). Commercial adventure travel operators resolve these problems with an investment in equipment; thoroughly-tested food plans; and a highly trained staff who cook all of the meals for their clients. Unless everyone supplies their own food, non-commercial travel groups must find a way to replicate these services.

Most of our friends prefer group over individual food because it frees them to explore on days they aren't needed on the cook team. While leading trips for a major environmental organization in the mid '80's, we realized a knowledge repository for accumulated experience was definitely needed. Someone had to be organized enough to keep track of the food planning information and participants had to be able to cook all of the meals with minimum supervision. Trip leaders had to be able to rapidly adjust the food plan to accommodate last minute changes. Since private trip leaders and participants can be inexperienced when it comes to food planning, they usually welcome directional and quantitative information to help them organize their trip. Our menu program was specifically developed to meet that need.

We believe that our menu planning database offers the following significant advantages:

Detailed preparation instructions allow inexperienced trip participants to cook quality meals.
Accumulated knowledge from each trip assures participants will always have appropriate quantities of food.
The shopping report generates purchase quantity totals for each ingredient, instructs the shoppers to purchase the correct package sizes, and shows the packers which meal uses each ingredient.
Trips are not saddled with excess food, so cost savings result.

Menu Planning FAQ's for Group Trips

How Was Our Menu Planning Software Developed?

Beginning in 1987, running Borland's Reflex Plus on a Macintosh 512KE, our primary goal was to create a relational database that included a diverse selection of meals that could be used on any outing. The ingredients would be related to the meal they were used in; the meals the leader planned to use on his or her trip would be related to the menu plan he or she was preparing. The easy-to-use software would support complex reporting capabilities so a final menu, a preparation plan, and a shopping list could be quickly generated. Meals that worked well on past group trips were added to the database after being tested for suitability and appropriate quantities. Since then, most of these meals have been prepared ten or more times in the field as a result of the 75-100 group trips we've organized or joined during the ensuing years. What we learned about appropriate quantities or improved meal preparation was added at the end of each trip.

Eventually we concluded that Macintosh software had a limited future in the database world so we developed a Microsoft Access version of our application. This state-of-the-art product features more recent software goodies such as: pull-down lists, menu customization, smart typing, etc., which makes the database extremely user-friendly. As the product evolved, complex data sorts that used to take 20 minutes in 1987 on our Macintosh now take place in seconds on a medium performance PC.

This system has been accepted by most groups we travel with and is used on all of the trips we organize. Food plans for longer private trips are available and many have been sold to permit holders for private river trips. Several years ago one of the Flagstaff Grand Canyon outfitters purchased the older Macintosh version of our River & Van software. This company offers full outfitting for private groups, including packing all of their food if desired. They've added their recipes to some of ours and have used the software continuously since then. Our software allows them to offer customized menus for any group size or number of days. With hundreds of trips organized using this software it is possibly the most tested product available to non-commercial rafters.

Sample Reports

What Remains To Be Done Before A Trip?

At this point, the trip leader has a menu, shopping list, and preparation list printed for his or her trip. Everything is correctly scaled for the number of people and the number of days the trip will last. The shopping list can be used to order all of the ingredients and sort them back to the correct meal and day it will be used as the packing proceeds.

Once packed, the fun begins. Participants can be sure that everything needed has been purchased in the correct quantities and is available for them when it is their turn to cook. Preparation directions are explicit. Having these written instructions available saves time and reduces everyone's work load.

Essentially this is a 'smart agent' cooking system for private wilderness trips that replaces the commercial guides' experience. Everything known by past trip participants can be included, resulting in sufficient information for even the most inexperienced to get the job done.

To Order a Custom Menu Plan for Your Trip

We're willing to print either Backpacking or River & Van menus for a fee. Using the printable meal selection form, select all the needed meals, insert the trip's start date and number of people, then return it to us with the applicable fee (money order or certified check only). We'll deliver printouts of the documents discussed here (menu, meal preparations, and shop & pack reports) customized for your trip. Menu ingredients in our River & Van database are available in most supermarkets. Contact us if you have questions or need additional information. If you wish to use the Backpacking version of this database, the freeze-dried ingredients can be ordered from AlpineAire or other freeze-dried food suppliers.

The cost of this service is $4.00/menu day with a minimum order of $50.00 (one computer run). Since the food costs of a week or longer group trip are frequently thousands of dollars, you'll rapidly recover this insignificant amount in time savings alone. We'll also add your recipes to our database for $4.00/meal with a minimum entry job of $20.00. You'll then be able to select special items if you feel it is necessary (as part of this service we'll check your proposed quantities against our database of similar meals to determine whether the quantities you are planning seem reasonable).