Creating & Using Recipes

With the Recipe product type in Univents you create kitchen and catering products that bundle ingredients, allergens, and preparation notes. Once a recipe is booked in an event, it automatically appears in the kitchen monitor and on the production list — no manual follow-up required.

Creating a Recipe

1. Go to Inventory in the left navigation.
2. Click Add Product in the top right.
3. In the Select Product Type dialog, choose Recipe. Univents immediately creates a draft and opens the product form.
4. In the Master Data section, enter at least a Name and Category. Choose the Billing Model (e.g. Per Guest or Per Unit) here as well.
5. Click Save to store the draft, or continue directly to the next step.

Adding Production Details and Ingredients

After saving for the first time, switch to the Recipe section (left sidebar of the form). This is where all production-relevant fields are found:

1. Enable Use for Kitchen Production — only then will the remaining fields become editable.
2. Under Allergens, enter all relevant allergens as tags (press Enter to confirm each one).
3. Under Dietary Information, add notes such as "vegan" or "gluten-free" where applicable.
4. Under Times & Shelf Life, set the Shelf Life (Days) and Preparation Time (Hours) — the kitchen monitor uses these values to calculate production windows.
5. Select a Production Type (Internal or External).
6. Under Production Category, assign the recipe to a kitchen station (e.g. Hot Kitchen). Use the plus button next to the dropdown to create a new category on the spot.
7. In the Recipe field, enter the preparation instructions as free text; Notes is for internal comments.
8. In the Ingredients area, click Add Ingredient, search for the product in your inventory, enter the Quantity and Unit, and confirm with Add. Repeat for each ingredient.
9. Finally, click Save or Publish to make the recipe active.

Using a Recipe in Events and Quotes

A published recipe behaves like any other product: add it to an event under line items (quote, delivery note, invoice). If the billing model is set to Per Guest, ingredient quantities in the production list automatically adjust to match the number of guests booked. What counts is the number of people on the line item itself — the People column on the document, otherwise the event guest count. It is applied exactly once: ingredients build on the quantity of the recipe or bundle, no matter which billing model is set on the individual ingredient.

Kitchen Monitor and Production List

Once a recipe with kitchen production enabled is booked in a confirmed event, it appears in two places:

• Kitchen (Kitchen tab in Inventory): Shows all open, in-progress, and completed production tasks in real time. Tasks can be moved between the Preparation, In Progress, and Done columns.
• Production List (Production List tab in Inventory): Aggregates all required quantities across multiple events. Filter by date range, event, or production category and print the list directly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I manage ingredients without using the Recipe section? Ingredients are exclusively available for the Recipe product type. The Use for Kitchen Production toggle must be active for the ingredients area to become editable. Standard items do not have an ingredients area.

What happens if I set the production type to "External"? The recipe still appears in the production list and kitchen monitor, but is marked as externally produced — useful for purchased dishes that still need to show up in the production plan.

Can allergens be automatically pulled in from individual ingredients? Yes. As soon as an ingredient carries its own allergens, Univents pulls them into the read-only Inherited from Ingredients area of the recipe automatically — even across multiple levels, if an ingredient is itself a bundle with its own ingredients. Inherited allergens can't be edited there directly; change the allergens on the relevant ingredient instead. The Allergens field still holds allergens that belong to the recipe itself and aren't derivable from ingredients (e.g. when the kitchen uses a shared fryer).

Does the product need to be published to appear in the kitchen monitor? Yes. Drafts do not appear in the kitchen monitor. Click Publish in the form to make the recipe active.