How to build a Trello board for managing a large food menu catalog with seasonal content updates?

[Harry Miler]

Hey Atlassian Community! 👋

Looking for advice from experienced Trello users on building an efficient board structure for managing a large food menu content operation.

Background — I manage   — a comprehensive Dutch Bros menu resource covering 200+ drinks across 12+ categories including seasonal items, secret menu drinks and regular pricing updates. Our content team uses Trello to manage the entire editorial workflow but the current board structure is not scaling well as the operation grows.

Current workflow challenges:

📋 Menu item tracking — Managing 200+ drink items across 12 categories with regular price updates and availability changes is creating card sprawl that makes the board hard to navigate efficiently

📅 Seasonal content management — Dutch Bros launches seasonal drinks at unpredictable intervals. We need a Trello workflow that handles rapid seasonal content production without disrupting the regular menu update pipeline

🤫 Secret menu documentation — 80+ secret menu items need ongoing verification and documentation. Tracking the research and confirmation status of each secret drink requires a dedicated workflow

🔄 Price update pipeline — When Dutch Bros updates pricing we need to update multiple pages on brosmenu.com simultaneously. Coordinating this across team members in Trello is currently messy

📸 Photography workflow — Drink photography production from capture through editing to publishing needs cleaner Trello tracking than we currently have

Specific Trello questions:

✅ Best Trello board structure for managing a large content catalog — single board with many lists or multiple boards organized by content type?

✅ Trello labels vs custom fields for categorizing menu items by drink category, dietary flag and seasonal status?

✅ Butler automation for Trello — best automations for a content calendar workflow with regular seasonal launches?

✅ Trello Power-Ups most useful for food content team — Calendar, Custom Fields, Dashcards or something else?

✅ Trello card templates for consistent menu item documentation — what fields should every menu item card include?

✅ Trello for seasonal content sprints — how do you structure a board for time sensitive content production around a product launch?

✅ Trello vs Jira for a small content team — at what team size does Jira become worth the additional complexity?

Full menu scope reference at brosmenu if helpful for understanding the catalog management challenge!

Has anyone built a Trello workflow for large content catalog management? Would love detailed board structure recommendations from the community!

[Ash H_]

Hi, I'm Ash from Appfire's Expert Services,

Managing a large food menu catalog with seasonal updates in Trello is a great way to keep things visual, but it can definitely get complex as your inventory grows. A solid native approach is to use a multi-board system where you have a "Master Catalog" board for all items and separate "Seasonal" boards for active rotations. You can use Trello's native "Copy Card" or "Move Card" features to shift items between these boards as seasons change. Additionally, utilizing Custom Fields is highly effective for tracking seasonal tags, pricing, or dietary info directly on the card front. To keep things organized, you might also look into Trello's "Automation" (formerly Butler) to automatically move cards to a "Live" list when a specific seasonal label is applied, helping you maintain a clear view of what’s currently on the menu without cluttering your workspace.

If you find that your catalog is outgrowing a single board or you need better visibility across multiple seasonal boards, BigPicture can be a powerful ally. Based on the public documentation, BigPicture allows you to connect multiple Trello boards into a single "Box" to create a unified overview of your entire operation. This is particularly helpful for seasonal planning, as you can use the Gantt chart module to visualize when specific menu items should be active and identify any overlaps or gaps in your schedule. It also supports a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) that lets you organize your menu items into a hierarchy—such as by category or season—making it much easier to manage a large volume of cards than scrolling through standard Trello lists.

Good luck with it all!
Ash