The menu planning process
There is lack of consensus on defining key terms, such as menu planning, menu development, menu design, menu analysis, and menu engineering. These tend to be used indiscriminately. This is partly because the word ‘menu’ has two separate meaning—“it can mean the product range that a food-service outlet offers; or the piece of literature or display used to communicate this to the customer” (Mooney, 1994). Mifli and Jones (2001) suggest that the terms menu planning be used to describe how the product range is determined at the concept development stage and the terms menu development should refer to the subsequent alteration of the planned menu . The terms ‘menu design’ should be applied to how the menu card or display is created (Brown and Morris, 1995)