Method of signaling menu components which are to be served out from supply containers of supply carriages associated with supply stations

In a method of signaling menu components which are to be served out from supply containers of supply carriages associated with respective supply stations having respective assigned station numbers, and positioned along both sides of an endless delivery belt for menu-component-receiving trays, and utilizing an electronic food service control, the improvement comprising, in a first step, determining and storing, in the control, the position of each tray and reading-in and storing in the control a menu request;

• in a second step, determining from the initial position of each tray and the predetermined positions of the supply stations along the endless delivery belt, the travel of the trays past the stations and the respective assigned station numbers;
• responsive to coincidence of tray position data and supply station data, retrieving from the control, through a menu request address, the respective stored menu request which has been associated with each tray in the initial position of the associated tray on the endless delivery belt;
• for determining the time at which the menu components are to be served, storing the information relative to the supply station, the container area number and the carriage load, which has been read into the food serving control prior to serving of the components;
• for serving the components, entering the menu requests into the food serving control and processing the menu requests while retrieving, from the food serving control, the stored position of the supply stations, the supply container area numbers and the carriage loads in synchronism with the entry of each tray onto the entry end of the endless delivery belt;
• registering, on a counter, the distance units through which the endless delivery belt travels;
• storing the count of the counter, at the time a tray enters on the receiving end of the delivery belt, in a storage for tray start values;
• continuously supplying the count of the counter to a subtracter;
• controlling the subtracter additionally by the tray start values;
• utilizing the subtracter to produce an information indicative of the tray position;
• storing the position values of the supply stations in a further storage;
• utilizing a comparator to compare the information indicative of the tray position with the position values of the supply station;
• and deriving, from the comparator, a station number address and a menu request address.