Recipes and food cost

A recipe tells AirQR which ingredients go into one portion of a dish. With recipes in place, AirQR works out what each dish costs you, shows its food cost as a percentage of the price, and takes the ingredients off stock every time the dish is sold. Recipes live on the Recipes tab of Inventory and are managed by owners and managers.

Recipes are part of Inventory & recipe costing, included in the Growth plan and above, and in the free trial.

The Recipes tab at a glance

Inventory → Recipes lists every active dish on your menu with Dish, Section, Price, Recipe (how many ingredients, or No recipe), Cost / portion and Food cost. The line at the top says how many dishes have a recipe and your average food cost across costed dishes.

Use the three filters to focus:

• All: every dish.
• No recipe: dishes still to be costed. Start here.
• High food cost: dishes above 35% food cost. Most restaurants aim for 25-35%.

Use Search dishes to find a dish or a menu section. If you have several menus, the section shows the menu name too.

How to build a recipe for a dish

You need ingredients on the Stock tab first (see Inventory basics).

1. Go to Inventory → Recipes and tap the dish.
2. For each ingredient, choose it with Choose ingredient (you can search) and type the Quantity per portion in that ingredient's unit. For example 0.15 kg paneer, or 150 g if paneer is set up in grams.
3. Tap Add ingredient for another row. Remove a row with the X.
4. Check the cost summary at the bottom, then tap Save recipe.

Quantities are always for one portion. The confirmation shows the new cost, for example "Recipe saved · Paneer Tikka now costs ₹62". To remove a recipe, delete all rows and save (you'll see Recipe cleared). If the same ingredient is added twice for the same portion, the rows are combined.

Recipes for sizes and add-ons

When a dish has sizes or add-ons, each recipe row has an Applies to choice:

• Every portion: used whatever the guest picks (the base recipe).
• Only for size: used only for that size, on top of the base recipe. For example, extra chicken only for Full.
• Add-on: used only when the guest picks that add-on, for example extra cheese.

The summary shows the cost and food cost for each size, and for each add-on it shows what it adds against its extra price. When stock is deducted after a sale, AirQR uses the base recipe plus the rows for the size and add-ons that were actually ordered.

How food cost % is worked out

Food cost % = recipe cost of one portion ÷ the dish's selling price × 100.

• The recipe cost is each ingredient's quantity × its current Cost per unit, added up.
• For a dish with sizes, the Recipes list shows the first size (its price and its cost), and the recipe editor shows every size.
• Dishes above 35% are flagged in red and counted under High food cost.

The price used is the dish's menu price. A high food cost is a prompt to check the portion size, the price, or the supplier.

How dish costs stay up to date

Dish costs follow your ingredient costs automatically:

• When you Record purchase, the ingredient's cost moves to the weighted average of the stock already on hand and the new delivery. Every dish using that ingredient is re-costed at once.
• When you edit an ingredient's Cost per unit by hand, the same happens.
• When you save a recipe, the dish's cost is recalculated.

Each sale records the dish and ingredient costs at the time it was sold, so past figures don't change when prices move later. Menu engineering in Analytics uses these dish costs (see Menu engineering).

Troubleshooting recipes and food cost

• "Add ingredients first" in the recipe editor: you have no active ingredients. Add them on the Stock tab.
• "Every row needs an ingredient and a quantity": fill in or remove the half-finished row.
• "One of the sizes no longer exists — reopen the recipe" or the add-on version of this message: the dish changed in the menu builder while the recipe was open. Close it and open it again.
• An ingredient shows "(archived)" in a recipe: it still counts in the cost. Swap it for an active ingredient or restore it on the Stock tab.
• A dish is missing from the list: only active dishes show. Check it is switched on in the menu builder.
• Food cost looks far too high or low: check the units. 150 in a recipe line means 150 kg if the ingredient's unit is kg. Also check the ingredient's Cost per unit on the Stock tab.