학교 급식 정보 확인하는 방법과 위젯 활용

"What is for lunch today?" is a question Korean students and parents ask almost every day. The menus are public, yet it is hard to find one place that explains where the data comes from, how current it is and how to read the allergy numbers. This article first traces the path a menu takes from a school to your phone, then compares the ways to check it, and lays out allergy numbers 1 to 19 in a table. After that it covers why data can disagree, how widgets cut the time you spend checking, and what to look for in a meal app.

How a menu reaches your phone

A school's nutrition teacher or dietitian writes the menu and enters it into NEIS, the national education administration information system. The parts that can be public, such as the school, date, meal type, dish names, allergy numbers, calories, nutrition and country of origin, are offered as open APIs through the NEIS Open Education Information Portal (open.neis.go.kr) and the national open data portal (data.go.kr). Most meal apps call that API directly or through their own server. The path is school, NEIS, open portal, app, and the source of truth is always what the school entered.

The portal's meal API is queried per school. You send an education office code and a school code together, pick one date or a range, and the response carries the meal type (breakfast, lunch, dinner), the list of dishes, calories (for example 1048.9 Kcal), nutrition, origin information and a load timestamp. In SETLOG's own check on 2026-10-01 the nutrition block came as nine fixed labels: carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamin A, thiamine, riboflavin, vitamin C, calcium and iron, and origin lines were often empty. These values exist only as far as the school entered them. If nothing was entered, the API is empty too.

So when an app and a school website disagree, do not assume the app is wrong; first ask which side was updated more recently. Some schools fix the web menu first and enter the NEIS change later, and sometimes it is the other way round. In our check the portal reloaded its data at least once a day, and rows about a week past the meal date stopped changing. That is behavior we observed, not a rule the portal promises, so do not plan around an exact refresh time.

Comparing the ways to check

There is no single best route. What you use depends on whether you want "lunch at a glance" or "exact information because of an allergy".

Two habits work well together. Glance at a widget or app for the daily routine, and only on days with an allergy concern or an unusual dish check the school's official channel once more. You keep the convenience and still verify against the original when it matters.

Reading allergy numbers 1 to 19

The numbers in parentheses after a dish name stand for the allergy-causing foods among that dish's ingredients. Korea's school meal regulations were amended in November 2013 to require schools to announce allergen information on menus, and the items follow the 19 listed in the labeling standard issued by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Education office guidance describes the food-ingredient items as mandatory and other ingredients and components as recommended. The numbers are in the table below.

Numbers are normally joined with periods. For example, if the menu says 떡잡채 (5.6.10.13.18), it means soybeans, wheat, pork, sulfites and shellfish were used. A dish with no numbers may truly have none of these ingredients, but the entry may also have been left out.

Cases that cause confusion

• Digits inside the name: dishes such as 새우튀김1, 전복솥밥(1+1) or 사과(홍로,9월) contain digits that are not allergy numbers. In our check this affected about 1% of roughly 29,000 menu lines.
• Out-of-range digits: values such as 22, 20 or 0 are not in 1 to 19 and are more likely to be sizes, grades or class marks.
• Two parenthesized groups: in 깍두기(2) (9.13) the two groups differ, so one may be an entry error. Many apps treat the last group as the official one, but if in doubt, ask the school.
• Separators: some schools use commas rather than periods. Read them the same way.
• Public versus menu allergens: when a school manages a separate public allergen field in NEIS, that value takes priority, so it can differ from what the school website shows.

One more point: the numbers are based on the ingredients used in the dish. Cross-contact from shared cooking equipment, or traces in processed foods, cannot be read from the numbers alone. For severe allergies, talk with the nutrition teacher in advance and ask about substitute meals in addition to checking the numbers.

Why data goes out of step

• Publication timing: many schools enter a whole month in advance. When SETLOG sampled 200 schools on 2026-10-01, 194 had this month's menu. A sample of 30 schools queried for next month the same day showed none published. Expect next month's menu to appear around the end or start of the month; we did not find a fixed rule.
• Same-day changes: if supplies, events or the school calendar change a menu, the school edits it, but an app picks it up with a delay. Apps that do not show change history also cannot tell you what changed.
• School code changes: on 1 July 2026, when the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City Office of Education was launched, the standard administrative codes of its schools changed all at once. In such cases a school may suddenly stop resolving in an app, and re-selecting the school usually fixes it.
• Coverage: the open portal menus focus on elementary, middle and high schools. Kindergartens and daycare centers are not in NEIS meal data, so you cannot look them up this way.
• Days nothing was entered: vacations, closures and no-meal days are empty. A good app separates "no meal today", "the school has not entered it yet" and "temporary error". Others show "no data" for all three, which is confusing.
• Outages: maintenance and overload notices have been posted for the portal and for education office systems. A menu that suddenly does not load may be a source-system problem rather than an app problem.

Cutting the checking time with widgets and alerts

Checking a menu should take a few seconds once a day. If opening an app and picking a school and date each time is a chore, you eventually stop checking, and a widget removes that friction. Structurally, a widget draws data the app already downloaded and stored, so the most recently received menu still shows in a weak signal area. How often the operating system redraws a widget is its own decision, though, so after a long time without opening the app you may see an old menu.

iPhone

Long-press an empty spot on the Home Screen to enter edit mode, tap the plus (+) button at the top left, search for the app and choose a size. For the Lock Screen, long-press it, tap Customize, and add from the widget area. Small sizes are easy to scan; medium and larger show more dishes.

Android

Long-press an empty spot on the home screen, open the widget menu, find the app and drag the size you want onto the screen. Menu names vary a little between manufacturer launchers.

When a widget shows an old menu

1. Open the app once so it fetches fresh data.
2. Check that Background App Refresh (iOS) or battery saving (Android) is not blocking the app.
3. Remove the widget and add it again.
4. If the school has not entered today's menu yet, fixing the app will not help. Check the school website.

If you use notifications, keep only the ones with clear value, such as "a favorite dish is served tomorrow". A daily push of the entire menu tends to get switched off soon.

Using it in your situation

Parents

Skim the week view on Sunday evening and decide which days need a packed lunch or a snack. If you have more than one child at different schools, check each school separately. In the morning rush a Lock Screen widget is enough.

Students

Register favorite dish keywords and you have something to look forward to. If you leave a quick thumbs up or down on what you ate, a month later you can look back at which dishes were good.

Families with allergies

Skim the month at the start and mark worrying days. On those days compare the app's numbers with the school's official menu, and ask the nutrition teacher for a substitute in advance if needed. Checking the numbers once the evening before and once in the morning is enough.

Choosing a meal app

• Does it show the source and the time of the last check on screen?
• Does it tell apart a no-meal day, a school that has not entered data and a temporary error?
• Can you use it without sign-up or login, and does it avoid unnecessary personal data?
• Are allergy and preference settings stored only on the device?
• How are ads shown, and are there protections when children use it?
• Does it spell out the item name when you see a number?

LunchLog: an app built around these criteria

SETLOG's LunchLog (급식로그) is an iPhone and Android app built with the criteria above in mind. Pick a school and today's menu appears with no login; you can move between day and week views, and the bottom of the screen always shows the source ("NEIS Open Education Information Portal"), the check time and a note that menus can change with school circumstances. Dishes that match your allergy settings are highlighted and compared with the 19 numbers the school published, so you see which item caused it (squid or eggs, for instance). The app interface is Korean only.

LunchLog limits

• It covers Korean elementary, middle and high school meals only, and has a Korean-only interface. Kindergarten and daycare menus are not available.
• It does not store or compare menu change history. Update notices are limited to today and tomorrow, with neutral wording.
• It includes ads: a banner at the bottom of the home screen and interstitials when you close the rating sheet or switch schools on purpose, with a daily cap.
• Numbers are simply the school's published values compared as they are. If a school entry is wrong, the app is wrong too. If you suspect an error, follow the school's official notice.

Who it suits and who it does not

Sources and further reading

1. Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education: food allergy page (19-item list and menu labeling, Korean)
2. NEIS Open Education Information Portal: meal service API specification (Korean)
3. Public Data Portal: school meal menu open API (Korean)
4. Korean Law Information Center: Enforcement Rule of the School Meals Act (Korean)

FAQ