earticle

영어

A mathematical model using integer programming is introduced in this paper. The model is desinged to provide solutions for menu planning in a feeding unit. A cafeteria in a university is selected for the analysis. In the model formulation, 9 essential nutrients and 221 different food items are considered. The model successfully provides a set of menus satisfying the recommended dietary allowances with minimum costs. The menus provided by the model are compared with those by conventional method. The model is found to contribute in increasing the productivity of a service unit, a cafeteria in this research, in the following three ways. First, the costs for the menus by the model are approximately 10% lower than those by the conventional method. Second, nutritional contents of the menus by the model are closer to the recommended dietary allowances with smaller deviations. Third, the model provides us with better menu plans in a more handy and faster way.