Menu Recipes

What is a menu recipe?

A menu recipe is the recipe behind a sellable item on your menu. It's attached to one of three things:

• A product (e.g. a fixed-price Margherita pizza),
• A product attribute (e.g. the 12-inch variant of a pizza), or
• An option value (e.g. the "Extra Cheese" topping).

Each menu recipe is built from two kinds of lines:

• Ingredient lines — raw items you buy from suppliers (tomato, mozzarella, basil).
• Batch recipe lines — sub-recipes you've already costed (tomato sauce, pizza dough).

The total food cost of the menu recipe rolls up automatically from those lines.

Where to find Menu Recipes

Go to Management > Stock Control > Menu Recipes.

Note: Where menu recipes live depends on how your account is set up:

• Company Menu mode (recommended for multi-store brands): menu recipes are managed at Company level (no store selected in the store switcher). The products you attach them to also live at the company.
• Per-store menus: menu recipes are managed at Store level (a specific store selected). Each store has its own list.

If the list looks empty when you switch between Company and Store views, that's expected — you're looking at a different list.

Add a menu recipe

1. Open Management > Stock Control > Menu Recipes.
2. Click Add Menu Recipe.
3. Enter a Name (e.g. "Margherita 12 inch").
4. Under Attaches to, pick the product / attribute / option value this recipe is for. The dropdown is grouped:
   • Products — items with a fixed price (no size variants).
   • Product Attributes — variants of a product that has sizes or types (e.g. "Pizza > 12 inch").
   • Option Values — add-on choices (e.g. "Toppings > Extra Cheese").
5. Under Lines, use the Add an ingredient or batch recipe dropdown to add lines:
   • Ingredients appear in the Ingredients group.
   • Batch recipes appear in the Batch Recipes group.
6. For each line, enter the quantity used in one serving. The unit cost and line cost fill in automatically.
7. Watch the Total food cost, Suggested selling price, and Food cost % at the bottom update live as you add lines.
8. Click Save.

Note: If a product, ingredient, or batch recipe you need is missing, add it first under Management > Menu or Management > Stock Control > Ingredients / Batch Recipes.

Edit a menu recipe

Click the pencil icon next to the recipe. Change the attachment, add or remove lines, adjust quantities. The total recomputes on save.

Delete a menu recipe

Click the trash icon next to the recipe, then confirm. Deleting a menu recipe doesn't touch the ingredients or batch recipes it referenced — those stay where they are.

Total food cost, suggested selling price, and food cost %

Three numbers appear at the bottom of the form as you build the recipe:

• Total food cost is what one serving costs you to make:

  total = Σ (ingredient line: quantity × ingredient unit cost)
        + Σ (batch line: quantity × batch recipe total cost)
  

• Suggested selling price is the menu price you'd need to charge to hit your target food cost. It works out the price excluding VAT first, then adds the item's VAT back on so you get a figure you can actually put on the menu:

  price excluding VAT = total / (target_food_cost / 100)
  suggested_price     = price excluding VAT + that item's VAT
  

  The target food cost comes from Setup > Inventory Setup > Setup, which is set at Company level. The default is 30% — meaning ingredients should account for no more than 30% of an item's price excluding VAT.

  Note: The VAT added is the item's own rate, so zero-rated items get a suggested price with no VAT on top.

• Food cost % is the ratio of total cost to the attached item's selling price excluding VAT:

  food_cost_% = (total / price excluding VAT) × 100
  

  See Understanding your food cost reports for why VAT is excluded.

  This only shows when you've picked something to attach to and that thing has an eat-in price set. The number is colour-coded:

  • Green — you're at or below target.
  • Amber — you're within 5 percentage points of target. Sustainable but watch it.
  • Red — you're over target. Either trim the recipe, raise the price, or accept thinner margins.

How costs cascade

The cost graph is one-way: ingredients drive batch recipe costs, which drive menu recipe costs.

1. Change an ingredient's cost or yield under Ingredients → the ingredient's unit cost recalculates.
2. Re-save (or trigger a save on) any batch recipe using that ingredient → its total cost recalculates.
3. Re-save (or trigger a save on) any menu recipe using either the ingredient or the batch recipe → its total cost recalculates.

When you save a batch recipe, every menu recipe that uses it picks up the new cost automatically. To rebuild costs across the board after a supplier price update, the cleanest path is to re-save the affected ingredients — the cascade handles the rest.

Common pitfalls

• "I picked a product but the food cost % is blank." The attached product has no eat-in price set. Add one under Management > Menu.
• "My recipe lines are missing after saving." A line needs both a picked item and a quantity greater than zero. Empty lines are dropped silently.
• "I added the same ingredient twice — the second one didn't appear." Each ingredient or batch recipe can appear on a menu recipe only once. Add the total quantity to the existing line instead.
• "My suggested selling price looks wrong." Check your target food cost under Setup > Inventory Setup > Setup (Company level). If it's set to 100% by mistake, suggested prices come out absurdly low.
• "The recipe doesn't appear when I switch from Company to Store view." That's Company Menu mode — recipes attached to company-level products live at the company. Open the company switcher and clear the store selection to see them.