In June this year, the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd) issued DepEd Order No. 013, s. 2026, setting out more detailed requirements for implementing the School-Based Feeding Program. Feeding days, cycle menus, food safety, tiered reporting, and fund liquidation all have to be verifiable and reconcile. For schools division offices and schools, much of what used to be done on paper and in forms now has to become traceable digital records.
WEDS has a mature solution. One supervision platform plus five types of hardware we manufacture ourselves, already in use at a large number of schools in China. The platform turns scattered data into accounts that reconcile; the hardware captures data where the work actually happens. The records and reports the policy cares about all have corresponding functions in this solution.
In the end, much of school meal supervision has to be carried by hardware. When food arrives at a school, someone has to weigh it and take a photo; samples have to be kept and retired on time; staff need a morning check before their shift; kitchen exceptions need to be captured on camera. If these actions are recorded only afterwards on forms, the record easily becomes something that merely looks right.
What the Platform Covers
The platform is one supervision center plus four subsystems, covering food materials, consumption, finance, and the kitchen. Three lines run at the same time. Food is recorded at every step, from supplier onboarding and procurement to verified acceptance and outbound processing; money reconciles at every step, from payment and spending to vouchers and balances; morning checks, sample retention, meal accompaniment, and kitchen video all sit in the same system.
All of this converges on one screen. Province, city, district, and school levels view it by permission, drilling down to a specific school. Abnormally high purchase prices, unusual account flows, and weight mismatches on high-value ingredients are flagged automatically and enter the alert ledger. Managers do not have to wait for monthly reports; they open the screen and see what is off today.
Five Types of Hardware, One Job Each
A platform, however capable, still needs terminals to execute. These five types of hardware correspond to the key actions in a meal’s journey from the gate to the table.
The smart scale handles acceptance. The first thing that happens when food arrives at a school is weighing. This scale weighs while photographing, and scans codes to match the purchase order. Short deliveries are booked in as actually received; the delivery person and the receiving officer confirm on the spot. Weight, photo, people, and time are bound together and cannot be altered afterwards. It works when the network is poor and syncs automatically once connected.
The smart sample cabinet handles retention. Sample retention is the step most likely to be done perfunctorily. This cabinet opens by face recognition, and the system records who placed which dish, how much, and when it is due to be retired. Expired samples, a cabinet door left open, and a missing sample all trigger reminders. Retention turns from something that depends on personal diligence into something recorded and traceable.
The AI morning health checker handles the pre-shift check. Staff stand in front of it each day, and identity, temperature, and hand hygiene are checked together. Those who pass go through; those who do not are stopped and recorded. Whether the check was done, by whom, and with what result no longer depends on a signed form.
The consumption terminal handles the meal payment. Canteen counters accept cards, QR codes, and face recognition; deduction can be a fixed amount per meal period or the actual amount. Meals still go through when the network is down, and transactions upload automatically once connected. Models are available for the cashier desk, the canteen entrance, and general identity verification, with housings and configurations matched to a school’s budget. Every transaction reaches the platform in real time and generates an income voucher in the accounts.
The AI edge box handles the kitchen. Connect a camera to this box and it gains recognition capability. Missing uniforms or masks, smoking in the kitchen, rodent activity, and unauthorized entry are detected automatically and pushed to the canteen manager or supervisor. Video does not all have to be sent back to the platform; the box processes locally and sends only conclusions and snapshots, so poor school connectivity does not get in the way.
Why We Build the Hardware Ourselves
Many solutions have a software company looking for hardware to pair with. It looks flexible, but in deployment the problems usually sit in that seam in the middle. Protocols do not match, data is missing a few fields, everything stops when the network drops, and when something fails the two sides wait on each other.
Our terminals and platform were built together. Consumption records, weighing data, sample status, and morning check results come out of the factory in the format the platform expects; connect them and they work. The hardware is produced on our own lines, with a three-year warranty and a supply rhythm we control.
Then there is offline operation. Many schools in the Philippines have unstable connectivity; our terminals still record and still accept deliveries when offline, and sync automatically once connected. The platform runs in the cloud, so schools need neither a server room nor a public IP address; power the device, connect it, and it works.
With hardware and software from the same company, there is one party to call when something goes wrong, instead of passing messages back and forth between the device vendor and the software vendor.
Already in Service
We built China’s first provincial-level school meal supervision platform, covering more than 3,000 schools and serving over 3 million teachers and students, with more than 9,000 consumption terminals deployed. The platform now operates in more than ten provinces and dozens of cities across China, serving close to 10,000 schools.
How It Works in the Philippines
On cooperation, we only supply products. Philippine government procurement requires a local entity to bid and perform, so we stand behind local integrators. Integrators bid in their own name, deploy on site, and handle day-to-day operations; we provide the platform software, which can be white-labeled, the five types of hardware, English technical documentation for bids, and remote support and training.
If you run smart campus projects in the Philippines and need a hardware and software package that can go straight into a proposal, talk to us about how the project can be delivered.