Ingredients
Ingredients are the raw materials behind your menu - flour, chicken thighs, double cream, a 5 litre tub of mayonnaise. Once an ingredient exists, you can use it in recipes to cost your dishes, and the allergens you declare on it flow automatically into every dish that contains it.
Plan requirement
Ingredients and Recipes are included on the Free plan and on Operate. Linking an ingredient to a supplier price additionally needs Purchasing, which is part of Operate.
What Is an Ingredient?
An ingredient is a single thing you buy or prepare, measured in one base unit. It does two jobs:
- Costing - each ingredient carries a cost per base unit, so a recipe can add up what a dish costs to make. See Recipes.
- Allergens - the allergens you declare on an ingredient are combined with every other ingredient in a recipe to work out the allergens of the finished dish. See Allergen App.
A product is something a customer orders; an ingredient is something you put in it.
How to Add an Ingredient
- Go to Dashboard, open Menu in the sidebar, then click Ingredients
- Click “Add Ingredient” at the top right
- Fill in the Details section (fields below)
- Select any Declared Allergens in the Allergens section
- Click “Create Ingredient”
You return to the Ingredients list after saving. To edit later, click the ingredient’s row to open it, then click Edit, make your changes and click Save Changes.
Field Reference
Details
- Name - required. Use the name your kitchen uses (“Plain flour”, not a brand name)
- SKU - optional. Your own stock code; it is shown under the name in lists and in recipe ingredient tables
- Base Unit - required. The unit you think of this ingredient in (see “Choosing a Base Unit” below). Pick it carefully: recipe quantities and supplier pack sizes are converted into this unit
- Cost - optional. What one base unit costs you, in your business currency. Leave it blank if you will cost the ingredient through a supplier price or a prep recipe instead. The list shows Not set until a cost exists
- Description - optional, for your own reference
- Active - on by default. Only active ingredients appear in the ingredient picker when you build a recipe. Switch it off for things you no longer buy without losing the history
- Notes - optional free text, for example the supplier spec sheet reference
Allergens
- Declared Allergens - choose from the 14 standard allergens. Declare everything the ingredient itself contains; TypeMenu does the combining when the ingredient is used in a dish
Choosing a Base Unit
Units belong to one of three families. TypeMenu converts freely within a family, but never across families.
| Family | Units | Converts? |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | Kilogram (kg), Gram (g), Milligram (mg), Pound (lb), Ounce (oz), Tonne (t) | Yes, between any two weight units |
| Volume | Litre (l), Millilitre (ml), Gallon (gal), Quart (qt), Pint (pt), Fluid ounce (fl oz) | Yes, between any two volume units |
| Count | Unit, Carton, Box, Pack, Bottle, Piece | No - a count unit only matches itself |
This matters when you write recipes. An ingredient with a base unit of Kilogram can be used in a recipe line measured in grams or ounces. An ingredient with a base unit of Bottle can only be used by the bottle; a recipe line of “250 ml” against it cannot be costed and the recipe shows Cannot calculate.
Tip
For anything you weigh or pour, choose a weight or volume unit rather than “Pack” or “Box”, even if you buy it in packs. The pack size belongs on the supplier price, not on the ingredient.
Where an Ingredient’s Cost Comes From
When a recipe needs the cost of one base unit of an ingredient, TypeMenu looks in this order and uses the first thing it finds:
- The ingredient’s own recipe - if the ingredient is prepped in-house (it is the output of a recipe), its cost is that recipe’s cost divided by its yield. This always wins, because a recipe is a statement that you make this thing yourself.
- The preferred supplier price - if the ingredient is linked to a supplier under Suppliers → Manage SKUs and one link is marked Preferred, the supplier’s pack price is divided by the pack size (converted into the ingredient’s base unit) to give a cost per unit. See Suppliers. This needs Purchasing.
- The flat Cost field on the ingredient.
- Nothing - the ingredient has no cost basis, and any recipe that uses it shows Cannot calculate rather than a misleading figure.
An explicit cost of 0.00 counts as a real cost; a blank Cost does not.
Allergen Review
Every ingredient has a review state, shown in the Review column of the list and in the Allergen Review card on the ingredient page.
- A new ingredient is Not reviewed
- Open the ingredient and click Confirm allergens to mark it Reviewed. The card then shows “Reviewed” with the date
- Click Remove confirmation if you later need to re-check it
Confirming an ingredient with no declared allergens is deliberate and valid: it records “we checked, and there are none”.
Why review matters
A dish on your allergen page is only shown as verified when its variant has been marked reviewed and every ingredient in its recipe (including ingredients inside sub-recipes) has been confirmed. If any contributor is unreviewed, the dish still lists every allergen it inherits - nothing is hidden - but it carries the caveat “Allergen info incomplete — please ask staff”, and it appears in the Compliance → Worklist with the unconfirmed ingredients named under “Waiting on:”. Confirming those ingredients is how you clear the worklist.
Important
Changing an ingredient’s Declared Allergens does not reset its review. If you edit the allergens, click Remove confirmation and re-confirm once you have double-checked the new list.
The Ingredients List
The list shows every ingredient for your business, sorted by name:
- Name - with the SKU underneath where set
- Base Unit
- Cost - the flat Cost field, or Not set
- Allergens - declared allergens as badges, or None declared
- Review - a Not reviewed badge until the ingredient is confirmed
- Actions - the edit button (for users who can manage recipes)
Click any row to open the ingredient page.
Deleting an Ingredient
Open the ingredient and click Delete, then confirm in the Delete Ingredient dialog. If a recipe still uses it, that recipe shows Cannot calculate until you edit the recipe and replace the line. Prefer switching Active off for ingredients you may use again.
Viewing Ingredients needs the “view recipes” permission; adding, editing, confirming and deleting need “manage recipes”.
FAQs
Can I import ingredients from a spreadsheet or CSV?
No. There is no bulk import for ingredients at present; each one is added through the Add Ingredient form.
Can I record “may contain” or cross-contamination warnings on an ingredient?
No. An ingredient has one list of Declared Allergens and nothing else. If you need to warn customers about cross-contamination, use the Disclaimer Text or Advice Text on your allergen page (see Allergen App), which appear beneath the matrix.
My ingredient is not in the recipe ingredient picker
Only ingredients with Active switched on are listed. Open the ingredient, click Edit, turn Active on and save.
Do I need Purchasing to cost ingredients?
No. The Cost field on each ingredient is enough for recipe costing on the Free plan. Purchasing (Operate) adds supplier-linked pricing, where a Preferred supplier price takes over from the flat cost automatically.
Related
- Recipes - build dishes from ingredients and see cost, gross profit and margin
- Allergens - declaring allergens directly on products and variants
- Allergen App - the public allergen page, Worklist and Lookup
- Suppliers - linking ingredients to supplier SKUs and prices