Maintaining nutrition values and calculating them for recipes

Univents knows the seven mandatory nutrition values: energy (in kJ and kcal), fat, of which saturates, carbohydrate, of which sugars, protein and salt. You enter them once on the item, per 100 g or per 100 ml. Recipes and packages calculate their total from that themselves — across every level, even when a recipe is an ingredient of another recipe.

Maintaining nutrition values on an item

1. Go to Inventory and open the item, e.g. butter.
2. In the Basics section you find the Nutrition facts block directly below Allergens & Dietary. For a recipe it sits in the Recipe section, also directly below Allergens & Dietary.
3. Choose the reference amount: per 100 g for solid food, per 100 ml for liquids.
4. Enter the values as they appear on the packaging or the data sheet. Enter decimals with a comma (e.g. 0,8), at most three decimal places. A point is read as a thousands separator: 0.008 is refused with a hint at the field instead of being saved.
5. Click Save.

If you only type the kcal and leave the field, Univents adds the kJ (kcal × 4.184, as a whole number) — and the other way round. Univents never overwrites a value that is already there.

A value cannot be less than 0. Energy is capped at 3,800 kJ or 908 kcal, every other value at 100 g — 100 g of a food cannot contain more. After a typo the field shows a message and does not save.

Rental items, services, tickets and digital products have no nutrition block: a poseur table, a member of service staff or an admission ticket has no nutrition values.

Items counted in pieces, bottles or packs

For Univents to count an item in a recipe, it has to know how much one unit weighs. For items in g, kg, ml or l that is clear. For units such as piece, bottle or pack you need the content per unit:

1. Open the item and switch to Price & Stock.
2. In the Unit, content & package block, enter the content, e.g. 60 g per egg or 0.75 l per bottle of wine.
3. Save.

Without the content, the nutrition block shows a note about it. Univents deliberately does not convert between weight and volume (ml to g depends on density) and never guesses a piece weight.

Total on a recipe and a package

When a product has ingredients or components, the Nutrition facts block shows no input fields but a calculated table:

• per unit — the total for one unit of the product, for a recipe usually the portion. If the recipe's own unit is g, kg, ml or l, this column is left out.
• per 100 g or per 100 ml — wherever the weight can be determined.

How Univents calculates: every ingredient counts with its amount in the recipe. 20 g of butter at 741 kcal per 100 g add 148 kcal, 2 eggs of 60 g at 137 kcal per 100 g add 164 kcal. If a recipe is an ingredient of another one (e.g. a dough in a cake), its total counts proportionally — 0.5 dough at 300 kcal is 150 kcal.

When you add an ingredient, change an amount or remove an ingredient, the table updates straight away in the open window.

In a package only food counts. Rental items, services, tickets and digital products are listed under Not included — they do not make the total incomplete. If a package consists only of such components, it shows No food in this product instead of a table with 0 kcal.

A recipe or package has no own nutrition values: as soon as a product has components, the total always applies. If the product still carries own values from before, Univents shows a note that they are ignored. A bought-in ready meal with manufacturer data is therefore best set up as an item without ingredients.

When per 100 g appears

The per 100 g column needs the total weight of the recipe. Univents uses:

1. the content per unit on the recipe itself if you maintained it (e.g. 350 g per piece) — it always wins, because it also reflects cooking loss and liquids correctly;
2. otherwise the sum of the ingredient weights — but only when all ingredients are in grams (or all in millilitres).

If a recipe mixes ingredients in g and in ml and has no own content, the column is left out with a note. Then maintain the content per unit on the recipe under Price & Stock.

What Incomplete means and how to fix it

When something is missing for an ingredient, Univents never quietly calculates with zero. Incomplete appears above the table, the affected values say at least, and each affected ingredient is listed below with the reason:

Known limits

• Yield: the values apply per unit, with the ingredient amounts as entered. If a recipe is maintained as a batch for 10 portions, Univents does not divide the total by 10 — a note in the block reminds you. It is best to maintain ingredient amounts per portion.
• Cooking loss only counts when the recipe has its own content per unit.
• Labels, menu printing and Excel import of nutrition values are not available yet. You maintain the values in the product or in the chat.

In the chat

Ask the assistant on the inventory page, e.g. “What are the nutrition values of the autumn menu?” — it gives you the total and tells you which ingredients are still missing information. With “Set 741 kcal and 82 g fat for butter” it enters the values on the item.

Frequently asked questions

Are the nutrition values copied when I duplicate a product? Yes. The copy takes over the nutrition values, the reference amount and the content per unit. Not everything is copied: the SKU and barcode stay empty and the stock starts at 0. The copy's ingredients keep their amounts in the unit you entered them in (e.g. 200 ml or 8 g), so the copy has the same total as the original.

Why do I see no input fields on the recipe? Because the recipe has ingredients. The total always comes from the ingredients — change the values on the ingredient itself.

You can find more about ingredients and amounts in Creating & Using Recipes.