Ingredient Management
One library for every ingredient. Update once; every recipe updates
Your ingredient library is the base for every cost in MenuCost. Enter each ingredient once with its price, quantity, unit, and supplier, and MenuCost works out the price per usage unit on its own. Change a supplier price and every recipe using that ingredient updates right away.
WHY THIS MATTERS
A recipe cost is only as accurate as your ingredient prices
A recipe cost comes from your ingredient prices. If those prices are old, say a supplier raised them three months ago and your spreadsheet still shows the old number, every recipe built on them is wrong too. The margin you see on paper isn't the margin you actually have.
MenuCost's ingredient library is the one place all your cost data lives. Every ingredient is stored once, with its purchase price, pack size, usage unit, supplier name, allergen tags, and price history. Update a price, and every recipe using that ingredient updates immediately. You don't have to touch each recipe by hand.
Example: A restaurant has 39 ingredients in its library. A supplier raises the price of fresh chicken breast from SAR 28 to SAR 32 per 1,000g, a 14% jump. The chef updates that one ingredient in MenuCost. Every recipe using chicken breast, grilled chicken salad, chicken kabsa, chicken wraps, recalculates its cost per serving on its own. The Profitability tab shows the updated margins within seconds. No recipe needed to be opened and fixed individually.
Ingredient management keeps your cost data accurate without extra work, so your recipe costs and margins are always based on what you're actually paying today.
HOW IT WORKS
Five things Ingredient Management does for you
Store every ingredient with its purchase details
For each ingredient, enter the purchase price, the quantity in the pack, and the purchase unit (g, kg, ml, l, or unit). MenuCost works out the price per usage unit on its own, for example SAR 10.00 per 1,000g becomes SAR 0.01 per g. That's the number that feeds into every recipe using that ingredient. You enter the pack price, MenuCost does the rest.
Organise by category and supplier
Each ingredient is tagged with a category (flour and grains, dairy, vegetables, spices and herbs, general, packaging) and a supplier name. A category filter on the library page lets you view one category at a time, handy when checking a supplier's price list or reviewing all your dairy costs together.
Tags allergens as Contains and May Contain, separately
Each ingredient has two allergen sections: Contains (allergens actually in the ingredient) and May Contain (a cross-contamination risk from shared production). All 14 major allergens are available in both sections. Tags set on an ingredient build the allergen profile for every recipe using it automatically, no need to enter it recipe by recipe.
Tracks price history on its own
Every time a purchase price changes, MenuCost records it in that ingredient's price history. The clock icon on each row opens the history, showing when prices changed and by how much. This gives you a record of how your costs have moved over time, useful for supplier conversations or explaining a margin shift.
Imports your whole library from a spreadsheet
If you already track ingredient costs in a spreadsheet, use bulk import to upload them all at once. Download the template, fill it in, and import. The preview shows which rows are ready, which are duplicates, and which need fixing before you go ahead. Your full library can be live in minutes instead of typed in one row at a time.
REAL EXAMPLE
What the Ingredients library looks like inside MenuCost
39 ingredients across categories, each with its name, supplier, category badge, purchase price, price per usage unit, allergen tags, last updated date, and action icons.
The library shows 39 ingredients across categories. Packaging items, like a disposable plastic spoon, are stored here alongside food ingredients. They carry a green packaging badge and no allergen tags. The three icons on each row open the price history, edit the ingredient, or delete it.
WHAT YOU GET
What changes when your ingredient library is properly maintained
- Price per usage unit calculated automatically. Enter a purchase price and pack quantity, and MenuCost divides them to give you the per-gram, per-ml, or per-unit cost that feeds into every recipe. No manual maths, no formula mistakes.
- One update flows through to every recipe. When a supplier raises a price, update the ingredient once. Every recipe using it recalculates its cost per serving right away. Your Profitability tab, reports, and catering quotes all reflect the new cost with no extra steps.
- Allergens set once, recipe profiles built automatically. Tag Contains and May Contain allergens on each ingredient a single time. Every recipe using that ingredient picks up those flags on its own. The allergen manager and report sheet are built from these tags, no separate entry per recipe.
- Price history recorded automatically. Every price change is dated and stored automatically. You can see when costs changed, by how much, and follow the impact on your margins over time.
- Packaging tracked alongside ingredients. Cups, spoons, boxes, and bags live in the same library as food ingredients, with their own packaging category. They carry a per-unit cost that feeds into the packaging layer of a recipe's true cost, the same way food ingredients feed into ingredient cost.
QUESTIONS
Purchase unit is what you buy the ingredient in, like a 1,000g bag of flour. Usage unit is what you measure it in when cooking, like grams per recipe. Most of the time they're the same. But if you buy something by the litre and use it by the millilitre, you'd set purchase unit to L and usage unit to ml, and MenuCost converts the price for you. The price per usage unit field shows that calculated result.
That marking means the field is calculated by MenuCost from your purchase price and quantity, you don't type it in yourself. This avoids the most common costing mistake: manually worked out per-unit prices that contain small errors or fall out of date after a price change. Update the purchase price or quantity, and the per-usage-unit cost updates immediately.
Contains means the allergen is actually in the ingredient, for example, all-purpose flour contains gluten. May Contain means there's a cross-contamination risk because the ingredient is made in a facility that also handles that allergen, for example, flour processed on shared equipment with nut products. Both are tracked separately since they carry different levels of risk for customers with allergies, and both show up in the allergen profile of any recipe using that ingredient.
Yes. Packaging items, cups, lids, boxes, bags, cutlery, labels, are stored in the ingredient library under the packaging category. They're set up with a purchase price and quantity just like food ingredients, and MenuCost works out the per-unit cost for you. When you attach packaging to a recipe, that cost feeds into the packaging layer of the recipe's true cost per serving.
Every time you update a purchase price, MenuCost records the old price and the date of the change in that ingredient's price history. Click the clock icon on any row to view it. Price history gives you a record of how your costs have moved over time, useful for supplier negotiations, understanding margin shifts, and tracking seasonal price changes on key ingredients.
Keep your ingredient costs accurate automatically
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