Recipe software that keeps your costs, allergens and labels in step
Nutritics, Kafoodle, Apicbase and Jelly cover most of what a commercial kitchen needs. This page shows which does what, where a system built around your recipes and suppliers goes further, and what it would cost next to a subscription. A first release with the four core features typically costs £3,500–£4,500 and goes live within a month.
£495 for a working prototype in 5 days. It comes off the build.
Next First Gear slot: w/c 19 Oct · 2 of 3 builds booked this month
Is custom worth it for you?
Three questions, and a straight answer.
What recipe management software does, and who offers it
These are the jobs recipe software usually covers, from costing a dish to printing its label, and which of four products used in UK kitchens list each one. Press “Need it” on the ones you need. If your current tool already does them all, stay with it; if not, the estimate below follows your picks.
| Feature | Nutritics | Kafoodle | Apicbase | Jelly | Your kitchen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First release | |||||
| Ingredient librarySupplier products with pack sizes, prices, allergens and nutrition | Yes | Yes | Yes | Prices | |
| Recipes and sub-recipesYields, prep waste, methods and photos | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Cost per portion and GPRecalculated whenever an ingredient's price changes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Allergens by dishThe 14 allergens for every dish, updated with the recipe | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| PPDS labelsName and full ingredients with allergens emphasised, for Natasha's Law | LabelMagic | Yes | Yes | Not listed | |
| Nutrition and caloriesPer 100g and per portion, for labels and menus | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not listed | |
| Product specificationsSpec sheets for trade customers: ingredients, QUID, allergens, nutrition, shelf life | Food Manager | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | |
| Phase two | |||||
| Supplier price updatesCosts follow invoices or price files, with an alert when a price rises | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Stock and orderingCounts, orders to suppliers, deliveries and waste | Not listed | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Production batches and traceabilityBatch sheets and lot numbers in and out, so a recall takes minutes | Not listed | Not listed | add-on | Not listed | |
| Sales and GP by dishTill sales set against each dish's cost | Not listed | Not listed | Yes | Yes | |
| Several kitchensCentral recipes sent to each site, with local versions where allowed | Yes | Not listed | Yes | Yes | |
| Allergen menus onlineA web or QR code menu showing allergens and calories, always current | Tenkites | Yes | Yes | Not listed | |
From each product's own site, checked Oct 2026: Nutritics, Kafoodle, Apicbase, Jelly. LabelMagic, Tenkites and Food Manager are separate Nutritics products or editions; add-on means Apicbase sells it on top of a plan. Prices means Jelly lists supplier prices but not allergen or nutrition data per ingredient. A dash means the product's site doesn't list it.
Next: the tools it connects to ↓What I’d build first, and what waits
A first release covers the four things every other feature reads from: ingredients with their supplier data, recipes and sub-recipes, what each portion costs, and the allergens in each dish. They’re ticked already. Get those right and labels, menus and spec sheets become reports on data you already trust.
If you already sell packaged food, PPDS labels, nutrition and product specifications can go into the first release too, since they read the same recipe data. Supplier price feeds, stock, production batches, till sales, several kitchens and online menus come as phase two, priced separately after the first release has been through a menu change.
What AI can do here
Three places it cuts data entry for a kitchen or technical manager:
- Read a supplier’s spec sheet. Drop in the PDF and the allergens, nutrition and ingredients are filled in for someone to check against the original.
- Draft a label’s ingredients list. It’s written from the recipe in descending order of weight, allergens emphasised, for a named person to approve.
- Explain a GP drop. When a dish’s margin falls, a note says which ingredient’s price moved and by how much.
No allergen status goes live on the AI’s say-so. It suggests, a person confirms, and the system records who. These come later, after your recipes are in and trusted, each quoted at a fixed £1.5k–£5k.
What it should pull from and send to
Tick the accounts package, till and suppliers your kitchen already works with. Each connection is priced into the first release.
Switching from your current system
What comes across. Ingredients with supplier codes, pack sizes and prices, recipes and sub-recipes with their yields and methods, allergen and nutrition data, menus, and the price history behind each costing.
Labels and photos. I move these too, priced into the import. Label templates are rebuilt to match the ones you print now, and recipe photos are attached to the recipes they belong to. Where an export only gives PDFs, such as old spec sheets, each one is kept on its recipe for reference.
How. Everything goes into a trial copy before the live system. Your head chef or technical manager picks the dishes they’d bet on, a best seller and the one with the trickiest allergens, and checks the cost and allergen flags. Where a figure differs, we find out which system had it wrong before anyone prints a label.
What your current system lets you take
From each vendor's own help pages, checked Oct 2026. Where a page doesn't say, I've written what I'd ask their support.
I'm on Nutritics
- Batch Export puts the recipes you pick on one Excel sheet, expanded to ingredients, sub-recipes and portions if you tick those options.
- Your own foods and their costings download as separate files, and recipe reports come out as PDFs.
- Their FAQ says your data comes back if you renew a lapsed licence. I'd ask how long they hold it after you stop.
I'm on Kafoodle
- Kafoodle's pages describe bulk CSV import of ingredients and supplier data, but I couldn't find a public page on exporting.
- I'd ask them for ingredients with allergens and nutrition, recipes with quantities and sub-recipes, and costings, as CSV or Excel, plus label templates as PDFs.
I'm on Apicbase
- All ingredients export to Excel, and a menu export lists every recipe per outlet.
- Each recipe exports to Excel with ingredients, cost per serving, sub-recipes, steps and allergens, or to Word with photos.
- Their REST API returns everything in your library, which is how I'd take the full set. Subscriptions renew yearly, so tell your account manager before the renewal date.
I'm on Jelly
- Monthly plans cancel anytime; an annual plan runs to the end of its year.
- If you connected Xero, your approved supplier invoices are already there.
- Their site doesn't describe exports. I'd ask for recipes, ingredients with price history, and stock counts as CSV before you cancel.
A subscription against a build
Prefilled from your ticks. Set your number of kitchens and what you pay now, then compare the two over three to five years.
£129 a month ex VAT
What a subscription can't give you
- Labels, allergen menus and spec sheets drawn from one recipe record, so a single change updates all three.
- Your own ingredient codes, pack sizes and supplier names, not a vendor's database.
- No per-location fee when you open another kitchen or win a contract.
- Batch and lot records shaped to how you produce, ready for an inspection or a customer's audit.
The build is the middle of your estimate (£4,000), paid up front. The first month's hosting is free, so the plan starts in month two, and one plan covers every kitchen. Subscription prices are list prices ex VAT and leave out set-up fees and price rises.
What recipe software costs
List prices ex VAT, from each vendor's pricing page, checked Oct 2026.
| Product | Price | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Nutritics | Not published; the pricing page is an enquiry form. | Editions for single venues, multi-site groups and manufacturers. Their FAQ puts average onboarding at 8 to 12 weeks. |
| Kafoodle | Not published; a free trial on request. | Sectors it lists first are schools, hospitals and contract catering. |
| Apicbase | Not published. Billed yearly; monthly billing costs 15% more. | Plans start from 5 outlets. HACCP, production planning and traceability are add-ons. |
| Jelly | £129 a month per location, plus a one-off set-up fee per site. The page doesn't say whether VAT is included. | 10% off on an annual plan. Till connections can add a pass-on fee from £15 a month per location. |
When off-the-shelf is enough
For one kitchen costing its dishes and keeping an allergen matrix up to date, paying monthly for recipe software is cheaper than a build. Rent rather than build when:
- the kitchen is new and the menu will change every few weeks;
- you want a large nutrition database of branded products from day one;
- your chefs already use a tool they like and its GP figures match your accounts.
Building makes sense when you make packaged food with labels and spec sheets, feed several kitchens or contracts from one set of recipes, or run a costing spreadsheet beside your software because it can’t hold how you work.
Open-source software you could run instead
I haven't found open-source software that costs recipes against allergens and prints PPDS labels for a UK kitchen. Tandoor Recipes is well known, but its licence bars anyone from selling a hosted service, so it isn't open source and I've left it out. For food producers, two ERPs come closest, each checked Oct 2026.
- ERPNext GPL-3.0
Good for: Producers: bills of materials, work orders, batch numbers and stock, with accounts built in.
Missing for you: No allergen rules, label layouts or nutrition maths. Those would be custom fields and reports.
- Odoo Community LGPL-3.0
Good for: Bills of materials, manufacturing orders, lot-tracked stock and purchasing.
Missing for you: The same allergen and label gaps, and it's a lot of system for a kitchen that only wants to cost a menu.
If you'd rather run open source, I can set one of these up, host it, and build the food pieces it lacks: allergens, nutrition and PPDS labels.
Your plan, ready to keep or send
What you ticked, split into a first release and phase two, each with a price range. Email it to yourself or send it to me.
First release
The first month after kickoff
- Ingredient library
- Recipes and sub-recipes
- Cost per portion and GP
- Allergens by dish
Phase two
About a month, after the first release is in use
Nothing picked yet
- First release estimate
- £3,500–£4,500
- Phase two estimate
- None picked
- After launch
- Cruise, £199/mo
Estimates, not quotes: First Gear ends with a fixed price for the first release.
How the estimate works
Each phase starts at £1,500 for what every system needs: logins, hosting, backups and your data imported. Each feature and connection adds £250 to £1,000 depending on its size, and the range is 15% either side of the total. The break-even uses the middle of both phases.
A production day, before and after
Picture a central kitchen supplying three cafés and a few trade customers. It’s a made-up day built from the problems production kitchens describe.
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| 7am | The production list is copied from last week’s whiteboard. | The day’s batches come from the cafés’ orders and trade orders, with quantities scaled. |
| Mid-morning | A supplier swaps the mayonnaise brand. Nobody checks the new allergens. | The new product’s spec is entered, and every recipe and label that used the old one is flagged. |
| Afternoon | PPDS labels are typed into a label program from a Word file. | Labels print from the recipe with the batch’s lot number and use-by date. |
| Friday | GP is worked out in a spreadsheet from three suppliers’ invoices. | Costs moved with each invoice, and the dishes below target GP are listed. |
The rules your system has to follow
- The 14 allergens. Food businesses must tell customers if any of the 14 allergens are in what they serve. The FSA’s allergen guidance for food businesses covers loose and prepacked food, with a template allergen matrix.
- Natasha’s Law. Food prepacked for direct sale (PPDS), such as sandwiches packed on site, needs a label with the food’s name and full ingredients list with allergens emphasised. The FSA’s introduction to PPDS labelling applies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Packaged food labels. For prepacked food, ingredients are listed by weight from most to least, and some need a percentage (QUID), such as “pork (80%)”. The full list is in gov.uk’s food labelling guidance.
- Calories on menus. In England, businesses with 250 or more employees must show calories on menus for food that isn’t prepacked, under the Calorie Labelling (Out of Home Sector) (England) Regulations 2021.
- HACCP. Your food safety management system must be based on HACCP principles, with records of checks and how problems were put right.
The system keeps the records these rules ask for. Whether a label or menu meets them is still your call, or your technical manager’s.
Is my data safe?
Chefs see recipes and methods; costs and supplier prices are visible only to the roles you choose. Each edit to an ingredient, recipe or allergen keeps the previous version and the name of the person who made it, so you can show an inspector how a dish changed. Recipes and supplier prices live on encrypted servers in the UK or EU, backed up every day.
Will the chefs use it?
In the kitchen it’s a recipe card on a tablet: method, photos and allergens in large type, scaled to the batch size. Costing and labels stay in the office. During First Gear a chef uses the prototype through a real prep shift, and anything that slows the line is reworked in the prototype first.
Other ways to solve it
| Option | Cost | Best for | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recipe software | A monthly fee per location, or a quote | One kitchen, or a group on standard menus | Labels, spec sheets or contract-specific recipes end up in Word and Excel |
| Custom build | £495 for First Gear, an agreed build price, and an optional monthly plan | Producers, central kitchens, caterers with many contracts | You fund it before the first label prints, and each later feature is quoted |
| Open source (ERPNext, Odoo Community) | Nothing to license; you pay for servers and for the food-specific work | Producers who want batches and stock in one system | Allergen and label rules don’t exist until someone codes them, and upgrades can break that code |
| Spreadsheets | Free | A small menu that rarely changes | One wrong cell and an allergen goes missing, with no record of who changed it |
Four guarantees, in writing.
They're written into the terms you accept when you pay.
Every build also comes with a 30-day fix guarantee. If something I built doesn't work as the plan describes, I fix it free.
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See it first
You click through a working prototype before you commit to the build, and you keep it either way.
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Fixed price
You pay the price in the build plan. New ideas go into a later phase with its own fixed price. Nothing is billed by the hour.
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On time
If I miss the go-live date in your build plan because of a delay on my side, you get 3 months of Cruise free (£597). If your data, feedback or sign-off is late, the date moves by the same number of days.
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Yours to keep
Code, data and accounts are in your name from day one. Export your data or cancel a plan whenever you like, and ask for a full handover pack.
You'll talk to me
I've built software for over ten years and started ByteGears in 2020. The person on your kickoff call is the person who writes the code. Recent work includes quoting automation for a renewable-energy installer and a cask whisky auction platform with ID and anti-money-laundering checks.
Questions about a recipe build
What's the difference between recipe management and recipe formulation software?
Recipe management is the kitchen side: costing dishes, tracking allergens and keeping menus current. Formulation is the producer's side: working a product towards a target cost, nutrition profile or ingredient percentage, then producing its label and spec sheet. Most off-the-shelf tools lean one way. A build can do both from the same recipe record.
Can it print labels for Natasha's Law?
Yes. Labels print from the recipe, listing every ingredient with allergens emphasised, and a recipe change flags every label it affects. You still approve the wording on each label; the system records who approved it and when.
Can costs update when supplier prices change?
Yes, from a wholesaler's price file, from supplier bills already in your accounts package, or from a supplier's API where there is one. Each dish's cost per portion is recalculated, and anything that falls below your target GP is flagged.
Can chefs use it on a tablet in the kitchen?
Yes, in the browser, saved to the home screen like an app. Recipe cards show the method, photos and allergens in large type. I don't build native iOS or Android apps.
How soon could we be using it?
First Gear takes 5 days and ends with a fixed price and a go-live date in writing. I'd time the switch for a menu change, so the new menu is the first one costed and labelled in the new system.
Let's get the gears turning.
Send me your plan. If First Gear is the right start, I'll reply with a payment link that holds your slot. If an off-the-shelf product would serve you better, I'll name it.