The Commonwealth Games are an ongoing sporting event made up of teams representing many of the countries that were once part of the British Empire. About ten years ago, Damian O'Kelly, who was then studying nutrition at a leading university in England, was working with athletes training for their big events at the Games.

Because his job was to make sure his athletes were getting the proper “fuel,” in other words, eating healthy food and getting the necessary nutrition to do their very best on the field, he worked with the dietary software programs available at the time.

However, according to O’Kelly, the programs were limited, had a rather small database of food types, and simply “kept crashing.” Further, the programs could not be accessed online or at his home. All his work had to be completed sitting in front of one computer, in one office, night and day.

Because of these limitations, “I couldn't give these athletes back anything particularly useful [about their diets]," says O'Kelly. "So I built my own database in Excel, typing in hundreds of food types until I could break down their diets a lot better. That's how Nutritics was started."

Nutritrics is a cloud-based technology that can be used on virtually any Windows, Mac, or Linux computer with an internet connection—meaning no more sitting in front of one dedicated computer all day long.

It provides a database, currently containing more than 125,000 foods, to help nutritionists, food operators, and others analyze more than 60 individual nutrients and dietary values, including calories, sugar, salt, vitamins and glycemic index. The technology can also be used to analyze sports supplements and health food products,

Using this information, food manufacturers, operators, and food service retailers can also do the following:

• Develop recipes and menus
• Determine recommended portion sizes
• Check for any allergens that are present in the food products they are working with
• Determine calorie counts
• Ensure the food items comply with current and ever-changing rules, legislation, and regulations
• Calculate per-portion costs, so food operators can better determine their profit margins, sales tax, recommended retail price, etc.
• Adjust all these metrics should recipes change

O’Kelly developed the program with his brother, a computer programmer, in their parents’ home. Along with its many attributes, the technology is quick, useful, and can analyze just about every component of what people eat, from identifying allergens to calculating proportion costs. DayMark Safety Systems thought it so important, they are now introducing it throughout the U.S.

“There really is nothing like it in the U.S.,” says Jill Carte, category manager of food safety at DayMark. “This information can then be printed on food labels in one or multiple locations, improves efficiencies, helps food retailers better determine costs-per-portion, and reports contribution of individual ingredients.”

For more information on Nutritics Insight Menu Management and Analysis System , contact a DayMark representative at 866-517-0490.