What happens when a retired school nutrition director decides to build the software she always wished she had? You get Health-e Pro -- a menu planning platform born from decades of operational frustration with spreadsheets, USDA compliance headaches, and the hundreds of hours lost every year to manual recipe building. In this episode of the Next Up Podcast, host Marlon Gordon sits down with Caden and Kim Coleman from Health-e Pro to explore how technology is finally catching up to the needs of the people feeding millions of students every day.

From the Cafeteria to the Codebase

Both Caden and Kim came to Health-e Pro through deeply personal paths in school nutrition. Caden worked as a menu planner in a Florida school district, where the combination of student preferences, USDA regulations, and constant policy changes turned every menu cycle into a complex puzzle. Kim Coleman, Head of Product at Health-e Pro, was quite literally born into the industry -- her mother was a registered dietitian and school food service director. Kim's first position in school nutrition came while she was still in middle school, helping in her mother's program.

The company itself was founded by a retired school nutrition director who had spent years building menus on spreadsheets -- spending hundreds of hours designing recipes, tracking compliance, and managing the endless moving parts of a nutrition program. That frustration became the blueprint for what Health-e Pro would become.

"I fell in love with menu planning. There's just something about trying to put together a puzzle and make sure that the kids are still taking the food, but the compliance pieces of that, USDA changing things up every few years -- you create this passion for something and then it just grows."

Why School Nutrition Needs Purpose-Built Software

One of the most striking points in this conversation is how long school nutrition professionals operated without dedicated tools. Menu planners were building entire programs on spreadsheets -- tracking nutrients, meal patterns, and USDA requirements manually. When regulations changed (which they do frequently), everything had to be rebuilt from scratch. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 was a turning point that made the case crystal clear: the rules had become too complex for manual tracking.

Health-e Pro's approach is to automate the compliance logic so that nutrition directors can focus on what actually matters -- feeding kids well. The software handles the regulatory math in the background, letting planners design menus that meet both nutritional standards and student preferences without drowning in spreadsheet formulas.

"I always joke that the best software is the software that you're not having to spend a ton of time in. Most software is designed purely to grab your attention and make you spend as much time engaged in it, and we're like, are we doing it wrong? Because we're thinking the opposite."

The Food Manufacturer Connection

Health-e Pro does more than just menu planning -- it also bridges the gap between school nutrition programs and food manufacturers. The platform partners closely with vendors and food manufacturers, integrating their product data directly into the planning workflow. This means nutrition directors can see exactly what products are available, how they fit into their compliance requirements, and make informed purchasing decisions without leaving the platform.

Caden, who also works closely with vendors and food manufacturers as part of his role, described how this partnership model creates value on both sides. Manufacturers get their products in front of the decision-makers, and nutrition directors get accurate, up-to-date product information without having to chase down spec sheets.

A Culture That Keeps People

Perhaps the most telling indicator of Health-e Pro's trajectory is the passion of its team. Both Caden and Kim spoke about the company culture with genuine enthusiasm -- a team built almost entirely from people who came up through school nutrition and understand the daily challenges firsthand. The retention speaks for itself: people stay because they believe in the mission and because the work feels personal.

Kim put it simply: when your team is filled with people who grew up in the industry, who have parents and mentors in school nutrition, who understand what it feels like to build a menu under impossible constraints -- the product reflects that empathy. Health-e Pro is not a tech company that stumbled into education. It is a school nutrition company that learned to build software.

What Comes Next

Health-e Pro continues to grow and innovate, with plans to attend major industry events like ACTA and ANC. Their goal remains the same: create solutions that save time and make the work of school nutrition professionals not just easier, but enjoyable. In an industry where burnout is real and resources are limited, that mission matters more than ever.

Key Takeaways