With the v2.3 release, we’ve introduced the ability to scan an item on the food item maintenance page and automatically add an item to your system after performing a look up to a copy of the USDA’s branded food items database (https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list). This will allow users to pull the UPC, item description and any available nutritional information entered into the USDA’s database.

To start, make sure you are on the Food Items maintenance page by navigating to Pantry Maintenance from the main dashboard screen

And then select Food items under the Maintenance list option

On the “Food Items” page, scan the barcode of the food items you’d like to add. After scanning the item, one of three things will happen

1. A food item with the barcode you scanned already exists in your pantry database and the “Edit Food Item” dialog for the food item you scanned will be brought up.
2. The food item you scanned does not exist in your pantry database nor does it exist in the USDA’s database. You will then be prompted to manually create the food item as an “Add Food Item” dialog will appear.
3. The item you scanned does not already exists in your food pantry database but does exist in the USDA’s database.

The remainder of this section assumes we’re running through the third scenario. After scanning an item that exists in the USDA’, a process will begin where we’ll first pull the image associated with the food item, the UPC of the item and the Food Item Description.

If you scan a food item where an image wasn’t previously linked by another pantry member, you will be prompted to select an image. The image search on the page does a look up to Google's Image search API. It will look up the item first by UPC.

However, if you click on the “Search by” toggle, you can update the search results to show image results based on the Food Item Description.

Note that the numbers below the image above allow you to scroll through the different pages (as most searches will return more than one page of results. The left and right arrows that appear on the image allow you to scroll through the results on the page you have selected. To select an image, click on the picture which will show a red border around the image meaning this is the image you selected. Clicking the picture again will remove the red border effectively de-selecting the image.

Alternatively, instead of selecting an image from the image search you have the option to upload your own image using the “Upload” button.

After clicking “Select” (to confirm that you’d like to add this item to the database) you’ll be prompted to select the generic food item for the item.

Choose a category and then choose the generic food item to select an existing food item from your pantry system.

Alternatively, if you type in the name of a food item that doesn’t exist into the “generic food item” drop down, you’ll be given the option to select a new generic item.

The tree list that pops up is based on a list of common foods gathered by the USDA (What we eat in America see this link for the full list. https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/beltsville-md-bhnrc/beltsville-human-nutrition-research-center/food-surveys-research-group/docs/dmr-food-categories/)

After choosing a list item and clicking “Select” you will be able to once again select an image for the food item if one hasn’t already been clicked and then click “Create” to create the generic food item.

Once create is clicked you’ll be prompted to enter details for the generic item. Ensure that you at least enter a Point Value so that the item will show on menus (items without a point value will not show on menu’s). Notice that a default “Each” UOM was also added for the food item.

Once the generic food item has been saved (or selected if you’re using an existing generic food item), you will be returned to the edit screen for the branded food item. The “is Branded” checkbox will be checked by default, the generic item will be automatically set to the item selected previously, the different translations will be automatically done

And you’ll find that the nutritional information for the food item will be prefilled with the information we obtained from the USDA’s database.

After you click “Save & Close”, you can search manually or rescan the item to confirm that the new branded item was successfully added.