급식로그 사용 가이드

LunchLog (급식로그) lets you check your school's meal for today without logging in, and see it every day through Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets. It also has a simple record feature for rating meals you ate. It is made for Korean schools and the interface is in Korean only. This guide covers first-time setup, using widgets and alerts, what to keep in mind when reading allergy information, and how the app handles privacy.

What kind of app is it?

School meal information is posted in different places by each school, and often you must open a notice board or a school website to see it. In LunchLog you search for your school by name, pick it, and today's meal appears right away. The source of the meal data is the NEIS Open Education Information Portal. The app does not edit or judge the content; it shows what the school has published. LunchLog is an independent app with no affiliation to the Ministry of Education, KERIS or any school.

It is available on iPhone and Android from each store. Because it is for Korean schools, dates and times follow Korea Standard Time.

Who is it for?

• Elementary, middle and high school students who want to know today's meal in the morning.
• Parents who use the school menu when preparing breakfast or a packed lunch.
• Families that must check the menu in advance because of allergies.

Screens at a glance

The six images below are store screenshots with a promo headline on top; the screens are the iPhone app. The school name and menus are demonstration examples.

Getting started

1. Install and open the app, then pick your school on the first screen. School search accepts Korean names only. When similar names exist, check the region as well.
2. Once you pick a school, today's meal appears. There is no sign-up or login.
3. Switch between day and week views, and open a meal to see calories, nutrition details and the origin of ingredients.
4. In settings, register your allergies and favorite menu words.
5. Add a widget to your Home Screen or Lock Screen. The steps are in the in-app widget guide in settings.

Using the widgets

Widgets show the meal without opening the app. The meal shown changes with the time of day: breakfast in the morning, lunch before midday and dinner in the afternoon. Both Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets are available. Widgets do not call the network directly; they read recent data stored on the device. If the app's background refresh is off, you may sometimes see older data, so it helps to open the app once at the start of a new week.

Allergy highlighting and cautions

If you choose allergy numbers in settings, menu items that overlap with the allergy numbers the school published are highlighted. You can pick from 19 numbered allergens, including eggs, milk, peanuts, soybeans and wheat. The key point is that this highlighting only reflects what the school entered. Menus can change for school reasons, and entries can be late or missing. If you have allergies, always put the school's official notice and confirmation from the school dietitian or nutrition teacher first. The app does not provide medical judgment.

Favorite-menu alerts and meal records

If you register a word such as chicken or tteokbokki and turn the alert on, the app notifies you the evening before a meal that contains it. For meals you ate, you can leave a thumbs up or down on each menu item and look back at past meals in the history tab. Ratings can be left from the start of a meal until three days later. Allergies, favorite menu words and ratings are stored only on your phone and are not sent to a server. You can delete all of your records in settings.

Where the data comes from and when it updates

LunchLog's menus come from the meal information that schools enter into NEIS and the Ministry of Education publishes through its open data portal. The app only displays that source as it is, so accuracy and timing depend on what the school entered. A few characteristics recorded in the development notes reduce the "why is it not showing yet?" confusion.

• This month's menu is mostly posted in advance, but next month's can be empty early in the month. In the notes' sample check on October 1, 2026, this month's menu existed for 194 of 200 sampled schools while next month's existed for none of 30. It is one sample, not a general rule, but it means not seeing next month's menu at the start of a month can be normal.
• The source can change after the meal day. The portal reloads everything at least once a day, and past meals can be edited for several days. The app uses a cache the server prepares before dawn, so a fix the school makes on the same morning may appear late.
• School codes can change. When the Jeonnam-Gwangju integrated education office launched in July 2026, the administrative codes of its schools were changed in bulk. The app is built to bridge code changes automatically, but if your school suddenly looks empty, choose it again.
• Kindergarten and daycare meals are not in NEIS. The coverage is elementary, middle and high schools (the notes do not confirm special schools), so institutions outside that may not be searchable.

When data is empty

The app separates three reasons for missing data.

• A day with no meal service, such as a weekend, holiday or vacation. A next-meal button is shown.
• A day the school has not entered yet, before the school publishes the menu.
• A temporary error. Try again a little later.

If the school name has changed or the school information seems off, try selecting the school again.

Privacy, ads and users under 14

There is no login, and the main thing sent to the operator's server is the school code. The app includes Google AdMob ads: one labeled banner at the bottom of the screen, and a full-screen ad that can appear up to twice a day, at least three minutes apart, after you close the rating sheet or change school yourself. It does not appear right after launch or on the day of installation. Because students also use the app, every ad request is treated as child-directed and limited to the all-ages rating, so personalized ads are not used. You can report an ad in settings. For details, including guidance for users under 14 and their guardians, see the privacy policy and the support page.

What to know when reading allergy information

Allergy numbers come from the parenthesized numbers 1 to 19 at the end of each menu line in the source. In the notes' measurement of about 29,000 lines, this notation was mostly regular, but some lines had digits inside the name, two parenthesized groups, or numbers that disagreed. In those cases the app is designed not to assert a number but to treat it as uncertain. Also, when a school manages a separate public allergy list, the numbers can be missing. So the absence of a red mark on this screen does not mean a dish is safe. If you are the guardian of a child with an allergy, treat the school's official menu and the dietitian's guidance as the standard, and use the app only as a quick preview.

Tips

• Build a habit of checking the Lock Screen widget before leaving for school.
• If a menu seems to have changed suddenly, check the school's notice as well.
• Whether next month's menu is already published at the start of a month depends on the school.

Limits and known issues

• It is for Korean schools only and the interface is Korean only. Overseas schools, kindergartens and daycares are out of scope.
• Meals the school has not entered do not show. The app tells apart "no meal today", "the school has not entered it yet" and "a temporary error", but it cannot enter data for the school.
• It does not show a history of menu changes. When the source changes, the latest content overwrites it, and update notices cover only today and tomorrow with neutral wording.
• Widgets read recently stored information on the device. If the app's background refresh is off, stale data can appear.
• Ratings can be left for 3 days from the start of a meal and come in two kinds, like and dislike. Text or photo reviews are not supported.
• There are ads. One banner and up to two full-screen ads per day can appear, and personalized ads are not used.
• It is not a medical or nutrition counseling tool. Calories and nutrition are values the school entered and have nothing to do with your personal needs.

How it compares

If menus change often or an allergy is involved, make the school's official guidance your baseline and use LunchLog as a quick morning check on top. How meal data gets published and how to use widgets are explained further in our article on checking school lunch info and widgets.

Sources and further reading

1. NEIS Open Education Information Portal: meal service API specification (Korean)
2. Korea Public Data Portal: Ministry of Education meal service data (Korean)
3. Korea Law Information Center: School Meals Act Enforcement Rule (Korean)
4. Apple Developer: Keeping a widget up to date

FAQ