Epicure Digital K-12 School Menu Board to Revolutionize School Food Services

NASHVILLE, TN, July 07, 2011 (Press-News.org) Epicure Digital, a leader in digital menu boards, presents its Epicure Digital K-12 School Menu Board at the ANC 2011 School Nutrition Association (SNA) National Conference, Gaylord Opryland Convention Center, Nashville, TN, July 11-13, 2011, Booth #2330.

K-12 Schools nationwide are introducing digital menu boards with nutritional menu labeling and addressing children with special food and nutritional needs and allergies in their cafeterias.

Implementing the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, signed by the President into law in 2009, Section 204/209 requires schools to inform the public on the School Nutrition Environment as of fall 2012 http://www.schoolnutrition.org/Blog.aspx?id=15349&blogid .... The Epicure Digital K-12 School Menu Board allows real time publication on the school's cafeteria menu boards, and simultaneously on the school's website, provide an ideal way to inform parents, children and the public on the School Nutrition Environment.

"Epicure Digital custom designs highly graphical digital menu board systems to solve K-12 School's complex menu and point-of-sale marketing issues", explained Harvey Friedman, Founder and President. "By creatively combining information and nutritional menu labeling with motion graphics and food photography, we produce visually compelling multimedia menus and promotions to help children make more informed nutritional choices and enhance the dining experience. We call this experience: The Cure for the Menu Bored ".

Epicure Digital specializes in developing nutritional menu labeling systems that address children with special food and nutrition needs. These nutritional labels display as nutritional data, nutritional scoring, and icons representing food groups, healthy choices, allergens, vegan, vegetarian, local and organic, whichever and whenever are applicable.

Epicure Digital menu boards help children become aware of their choices, helping them make the right decision to achieve a balanced life by eating well.

Epicure Digital Systems is a digital menu board company uniquely integrating its expertise in software technology and food service operations and marketing to create digital signage products and services for the food service industry. Its core product is the Epicure Digital Menu System. Its core services are menu engineering, nutritional menu labeling, and content creation. It provides tools to increase efficiency, revenues and profitability.

The Epicure Digital K-12 School Menu Board can support nutritional scoring systems such as the Catch (Coordinated Approach To Child Health) Eat Smart menu item classification to Go, Slow and Whoa, Sodexo's Fresh Inspiration, Nuval, Guiding Stars, Nutripoints, Glycemic Index, Weight Watcher and more.

A new study suggests that food allergies affect more children than government health officials estimate. The advocacy group-funded study in the journal Pediatrics says one in 13 children in the U.S. has some type of food allergy, and researchers say 40 percent of those children suffer severe reactions http://newsfeedresearcher.com/data/articles_m26/food-chi ... . "For these children, accidental ingestion of an allergenic food may lead to difficulty breathing, a sharp drop in blood pressure, and even death," said lead study author Dr. Ruchi Gupta, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a pediatrician at Children's Memorial Hospital. "Understanding how common it is and how severe it is, that's important to note," said Dr. Ruchi S. Gupta, lead author of a study published in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics.

"Because food allergies and other food intolerances and sensitivities are on the rise in children, it is important for school meal programs to be able to recognize which ingredients and recipes contain certain allergens." according to Kim Blum, MS, RD, at KB Nutrition Consulting in Dallas, TX. "The National School Lunch Program provides low-cost or free lunches to more than 31 million children each school day. Since schools feed such a large number of American children, it is critical for schools to send a clear message to students with special dietary needs by identifying allergens on menu boards in their cafeterias. By posting allergen information on their menu boards, they can easily accommodate all children being served school meals and can publish identical information on their websites in order to share with parents and caregivers."

"USDA regulations require that substitutions or modifications be made for children with disabilities that cause them to need dietary accommodations. With identification of allergens on cafeteria menu boards, schools can meet the needs of students with disabilities, as well as students who suffer from a non-life threatening food allergy or food sensitivity" explained Mrs. Blum.

Kim Blum is the owner of KB Nutrition Consulting in Dallas, TX. KB Nutrition is dedicated to working with restaurants and schools to provide the nutrition information for their recipes identify allergens and work to modify recipes to meet certain health guidelines.

In new construction, remodeling and renovation projects, Epicure Digital works closely with food service consultants and clients to determine the best digital menu system strategy and participates in the management of the projects from concept phase to full implementation.

Epicure Digital's clients include K-12 schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, independent and chain restaurants, contract food service companies, business & industry, and cinemas and casinos among others.

The company's website (http://www.epicuredigital.com) has an extensive portfolio of its client's multi screen and multi station digital menu board projects.

For more information, contact:
Tommy Orpaz, 310-652-8246
torpaz@epicuredigital.com