Plan community meals as a repeating 7-day cycle that is checked each week against what is in store and what the season provides, using the parent’s per-person quantities to turn each dish into pounds of grain, beans, vegetables and fat. For 100 people the parent’s table calls for 37.5-50 lb of dry grain in the portion it describes, so the cycle must be tested against stores before it is posted.
Meal planning at scale is the practice of turning a community’s stores, season and nutritional needs into a repeating menu and a matching list of ingredient quantities.
A Menu Is A Draw On Stores, Not A List Of Recipes
A community kitchen cannot decide each morning what to cook, because the ingredients for 100 people have to be pulled from storage, soaked, milled or thawed in advance, and because the stores are finite. The parent guide proposes a 7-day cycle that balances nutrition, available ingredients and labour, with a feast day. The cycle is the planning unit: it makes the weekly draw predictable, and a predictable draw can be matched to the caloric budget (Caloric Budget for a Community).
What You Need
- An inventory of stores by item and amount, updated weekly (FIFO Rotation explains using oldest first)
- The parent’s per-person quantities (see Ingredient Scaling Formulas)
- The seasonal supply: fresh greens in spring and summer, roots and dry goods in winter (Seasonal Production Calendar)
- A head count including children, and a list of special needs (Special Dietary Needs Management)
Method: Build And Test A Week
Step 1: Start from the cycle in Weekly Menu Rotation, and choose which days fit the current season.
Step 2: Convert each day to quantities. Multiply the per-person amounts by headcount. For example, 6-8 oz of dry grain per person is 600-800 oz for 100 people, or 37.5-50 lb.
Step 3: Add up the week. If the grain portion applied every day, a week would need 37.5 × 7 = 262.5 lb to 50 × 7 = 350 lb of dry grain for 100 people. The parent does not say whether its table is a per-meal or a per-day ration, and that decides whether the number is right; check it against your stores and write down which one you use.
Step 4: Check against stores. If the week’s draw is more than the remaining stores divided by the weeks to the next harvest, change the menu, not the arithmetic.
Step 5: Check the calories. The ration in the parent’s table is worth roughly 1,225-1,620 kcal per person (meat excluded) if it is a daily ration, about 44-58% of the 2,800 kcal community average. The remainder is meant to come from the family side of the hybrid model (Hybrid: Communal Staples, Family Finishing).
Step 6: Post the plan with a few days’ notice so the cooks can soak beans and prepare dough.
Common Mistakes
- Planning dishes, not quantities. A menu that has not been multiplied out hides a bean shortage until it is too late.
- Forgetting preparation time. Dry beans need soaking and a long hard boil before they can be served (Grains & Legumes).
- A menu that ignores the season. Greens in January, or rice where it is not stored.
Safety
A planned menu can still poison a whole community
Undercooked dried beans contain a toxin destroyed by a 15-minute hard boil, and food held too long after cooking grows bacteria. Build the cooking time and the serve-immediately rule into the plan (Temperature Danger Zone Management).
What’s Next
- Learn next: Weekly Menu Rotation — the parent’s 7-day cycle in detail
- Combine with: Ingredient Scaling Formulas — the arithmetic that turns dishes into quantities