What is an ingredient in tspoonlab and how do you manage it?
In the tspoonlab platform, an ingredient refers to any product, supply, or food raw material used in your recipes and culinary operations (for example: tomato, chicken, or red wine).
Ingredients are grouped in tspoonlab under generic names, regardless of their brand, supplier, or purchase format, making it easier to keep homogeneous cost control across your restaurant business.
Video tutorial: Ingredients in tspoonlab
To make managing your food business easier, you can play the video tutorial embedded in this article or follow the written step-by-step instructions shown in the tspoonlab interface walkthrough:
Step-by-step guide to create ingredients in tspoonlab
Access the ingredients tab: Go to the "Offer" module of tspoonlab, located in the top-left corner of the screen.
Select the module: In the secondary options bar that appears right below "Offer", select "Ingredients" to access the management of all your business's products.
Open the ingredients record: Find the three dots button next to the ingredients search bar. Open the dropdown menu and select "New ingredient".
Registration form: The system opens a blank ingredient record — a form where you enter all the relevant information for the ingredient you are adding to tspoonlab.
Mandatory and optional fields of the form
When you create a new ingredient in tspoonlab, it is important to complete the fields your operation needs:
Ingredient name (*): enter the generic name of the raw material (e.g., "Passion fruit").
Alternative name: secondary or commercial name of the ingredient, if required.
Unit of measure (*): base unit for your recipes (kilograms or liters are recommended).
Conversions: set equivalences between units if you buy the supply in one format and cook it in another.
Ingredient family (*): macro category the item belongs to (e.g., passion fruit is assigned to the "Fruit" family).
Include in orders: checkbox so the ingredient is available in your automatic shopping lists.
Storage and expiry: thermal storage specifications (fridge, freezer, room temperature) and primary expiry dates.
Price calculation: cost-algorithm selector. To choose the right one for your business, see our specific article on Price calculation for ingredients and materials
VAT: tax percentage associated with the purchase of the food supply.
Store: the physical space or digital cold room where the stock will be kept.
Minimum and maximum stock: operational alerts to help manage inventory and avoid stockouts or waste from overstocking.
Other optional fields: barcode (EAN) and internal ingredient code if your business needs them for fast counts.
Once you have completed these fields, click the "Ok" button to save this basic information in tspoonlab.
📢 Important: Mandatory fields are marked with (*).
How to edit an ingredient advanced information in tspoonlab
On the main page of any ingredient saved in tspoonlab, you can modify advanced settings, operational details, and culinary yield values from the following tabs of its record:
Ingredient description and images: module to add reference images and technical specification notes by editing the three-dot menu of the "Description" and "Image" sections.
Official allergen management: lets you add the official allergen list to each product's record with all the relevant components. These data are pulled automatically into the recipe costings and recipes in tspoonlab that contain this ingredient, by editing the dropdown menu of the allergens section.
Waste breakdown: lets you define, in each ingredient's record, the product or by-products that make up the main item in tspoonlab and set their net yield proportions.
Preparation method: technical space in the tspoonlab record to write the detailed steps and the prior culinary preparation method of the ingredient.
Secondary storage in tspoonlab: define the ingredient's shelf life and the storage conditions of the raw material once the ingredient has been opened, unpacked, or processed.
Secondary storage instructions: detailed text with the specific guidance kitchen staff must follow in tspoonlab to correctly store the modified ingredient.
Internal comments: clarifying notes or additional internal annotations to add to the product record in the tspoonlab kitchen.
Control points (HACCP): set, in the ingredient record, the mandatory quality and food-safety parameters required by the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system.
Cuts and breakdowns of raw materials: technical record in tspoonlab to divide a macro ingredient into different usable parts and set their respective financial yields. You can find more information in our Manage cuts & breakdowns on your products article.
Cutting and breakdown techniques: detail on the specific methods, utensils, or culinary skills needed to break down the product within the platform.
Suppliers and purchase prices: link the ingredient record in tspoonlab with the supplier companies that provide it, managing purchase packaging formats and historical purchase price lists.
Total purchases per year: tspoonlab shows the accumulated history of goods volume and the total spend on that ingredient during the current year within the product record.
Latest recorded purchases: history of the most recent orders received in tspoonlab for this ingredient, detailing dates, suppliers, and exact incoming costs.
Involvement in kitchen productions: automated list in tspoonlab that reveals in which base recipes, final dishes, or intermediate recipes this item is used as an ingredient.
Goods dispatches: shows the outflows recorded from tspoonlab of the ingredient to other establishments, events, or external points of sale of the brand.
Operational waste in tspoonlab: shows, in the product record, the losses recorded due to waste, expiry, breakage, or poor condition, automatically deducting them from the available digital stock.
Inventory transfers: tspoonlab history of this ingredient's stock movements between different areas, kitchens, or stores of the same business.
Linked customers: shows, within the ingredient record, the product linked to specific customer sales in the system.
Latest recorded sales: tspoonlab record of the ingredient's most recent outflows through the sales link of your Point of Sale (POS) terminals.
Digital stores: shows, in the product record, which digital store configured in tspoonlab holds the ingredient's physical stock.
📌 Note: You can update and edit any of these data in the ingredient record in tspoonlab at any point in your operation.
Options in the tspoonlab ingredient catalog
To access an ingredient´s global options, click the dropdown menu inside the ingredient record on the three large dots in the top-right corner. The system displays the following control tools:
Edit ingredient: lets you modify the basic data and mandatory fields of the ingredient's initial form.
Delete ingredient: permanently and definitively removes the ingredient from the tspoonlab database.
Hide ingredient: restricts the ingredient's visibility in the active kitchen lists but keeps the information in the tspoonlab database.
Copy ingredient: clones the ingredient's configuration to speed up creating similar products in tspoonlab.
Move to material: changes the item's nature within the tspoonlab inventory, moving it from the edible products catalog to the non-edible materials catalog.
Move to another cost: reassigns the product's financial category within the tspoonlab accounting balances.
Mark product: lets you place a visual alert or interest symbol on the ingredient in the general list.
Set as key product: activates a priority-interest marker in tspoonlab to obtain financial reports for specific ingredients or generate partial inventory counts more easily.
Deactivate product: disables the item's operational use in active tspoonlab recipes without deleting its history.
Copy ingredient to another account: transfers the accounting ownership and the ingredient's data to another branch or account of the same restaurant group.
Labels: lets you add custom tags in tspoonlab to filter, classify, and group your ingredients in bulk.
When you select any of these options, tspoonlab processes the change automatically in your database.
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