A new supplier's flour and an old label
Your kitchen makes sausage rolls for the deli counter and the cafe. The recipe has not changed in years. But last month the usual flour was out of stock, so the kitchen used a different brand from the wholesaler. The sausage meat now comes from your own pigs with a different seasoning mix. The labels on the deli counter were printed in spring. The allergen folder in the cafe was last updated before that.
Nobody did anything careless. Ingredients changed for sensible reasons, and there was no simple way to carry the change through to the labels and the folder.
Why labels and records fall behind
A farm shop kitchen works like a small food manufacturer, but without the systems. Recipes live in a notebook or a cook's head. Ingredient specifications from suppliers come as PDFs in email. Labels are made in a word processor or a label printer's own software. The cafe's allergen information is a folder or a sheet on the wall. Each is updated separately.
- Recipes change with the season and the cook.
- Substitute ingredients are used when the usual one is out of stock.
- Supplier specifications change without anyone reading the new PDF.
- Labels, deli tickets and the cafe folder are all separate documents.
- There is no record of which version of a recipe was made on which day.
Rules on labelling and allergen information for food you make and sell yourself, such as prepacked for direct sale, are set in law and enforced by your local authority. We do not advise on them. What we build is the record keeping that makes it easier for you to follow the rules you are given.
What out-of-date records cost
The serious risk is a customer with an allergy relying on information that no longer matches the product. That is a safety matter first, and it can also have legal consequences for the business. Beyond that, keeping everything up to date by hand takes the time of your most skilled kitchen staff, and the fear of getting it wrong can stop you trying new products at all.
There is also the day-to-day friction: staff unsure what to tell a customer who asks, and a cafe team checking three sources that do not agree.
The recipe record we build
- A recipe record for each product the kitchen makes: ingredients, quantities and method notes, with a version number that changes whenever a recipe is edited.
- An ingredient library holding each bought-in ingredient with its supplier, product code, its own ingredient list and allergens as stated on the supplier's specification, and the specification file itself.
- Approved substitutes for each ingredient, so a change of flour or stock cube can be recorded in a tap rather than creating a new recipe from scratch.
- Generated ingredient lists and allergen summaries for each product, built from the recipe and ingredient library, with the allergens highlighted in the way you specify, for a person to check before printing.
- Labels for prepacked products, deli counter tickets and a cafe allergen matrix produced from the same record, so they all change together.
- A production log: which recipe version was made on which day, and which ingredient batches were used, so any question can be traced.
| Change | What happens |
|---|---|
| Recipe edited | New version, labels and matrix regenerated for checking |
| Substitute ingredient used | Allergens rechecked, change flagged if they differ |
| Supplier updates a specification | Products using it flagged for review |
| New product added | Built from library ingredients, checked before sale |
Every generated label and allergen summary is checked and approved by a named person before it is used. The system does the joining up; a person takes responsibility for the result.
How the kitchen works afterwards
When the usual flour is unavailable, the cook records the substitute on the tablet. If the substitute has the same allergens, nothing else changes. If it differs, the products using it are flagged, and the labels and cafe matrix are regenerated for checking before that batch goes on sale.
When a customer asks the cafe whether the quiche contains mustard, staff look at the current matrix on a tablet, which is generated from the same record as the label. When your local authority visits, you can show the recipe version, the ingredients and their specifications for any product.
Could your kitchen records be out of step?
- Recipes live in a notebook or someone's head.
- Labels were printed months ago and recipes have changed since.
- Substitute ingredients are used without updating the allergen information.
- Supplier specifications sit unread in email.
- The cafe allergen folder and the deli labels do not match.