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Recipe Manager Enterprise

Site License up to 5-Concurrent Users ($2,895.00)

Includes :
* Software box and CD.
* Complete manual with step-by-step instructions, pictures, a rich glossary of unit conversions and cullinary terms.
* Recipe Manager Pro software includes nutritional analysis and label printing, detailed inventory / recipe cost and waste tracking, low stock detection, recipe and inventory data tracking, recipe scaling, unit conversions, USDA nutritional import directly from website, pictures/attachments, detailed reporting, etc.
* Recipe Manager Client is a read-only package for a multi-site environment. Users of the client can do everything except make changes. This is perfect for multi-site customers that need to allow only data browsing capabilities for the majority of their user base.
* Menu Writer software to design, process, and print daily menus. This add-on module can interface to a point-of-sale (POS) system to determine an amount to prep for all items, tracks run-out and item waste, can have event menus for catering or shift/day menus, prints individual recipe reports or entire menu reports which include grocery lists, cost and nutrition analysis by menu or item, profit/loss report by menu, etc.
* Enterprise Purchase Order Module to automatically order and receive product when stock is low!.

Recipe Manager Pro

Site License up to 5-Concurrent Users ($2,000.00)

Includes :
* everything above EXCEPT the Purchase Order Module

Recipe Manager LITE

Single-User License ($495.00)
(Perfect for individual chefs / cooks)

Includes :
* Software box and CD.
* Complete manual with step-by-step instructions, pictures, a rich glossary of unit conversions and cullinary terms.
* Recipe Manager LITE software includes nutritional analysis and label printing, recipe and inventory data tracking, recipe scaling, unit conversions, USDA nutritional import directly from website, pictures/attachments, detailed reporting, etc.

Recipe Manager 1-Year Support

Contract @ $110/month

See our Product Catalog for additional options!

ABOUT Recipe Manager

Recipe Manager is a powerful application for back-room recipe information management and production control. It is a tool for tracking recipe detail, micro-managing costs of product and ingredients, analyzing nutrition detail, building product menus, and a host of many other features for a variety of food service businesses.

Ideal for Restaurant Chefs

It is the ideal package for Chefs to control their food production. It can be interfaced with a number of leading point-of-sale systems to determine exactly the amount to prepare of each menu item based on daily sales forecasts. It will make sure the correct amount of product is produced to meet demand and minimize waste.

Ideal for Catering Businesses

It is the ideal package for Catering businesses. You can quickly design custom menus with food products specific for the catering job at hand. After a menu is built for a customer, all assigned recipes (and ingredient portions) are scaled exactly for that amount to be prepared. You’ll also know your exact cost and profit for any catering job as you build the menu since Recipe Manager tracks cost down to the fractional ingredient used!

Ideal for Food Product Manufacterers

It is the ideal package for independent producers of food products. Recipe Manager not only tracks all your food product detail, but it will even produce a container product label for you. Design your own container label from Recipe Manager with the actual FDA “Nutrition Facts” right on it!

Recipe Manager was recently adopted by MEPoL, Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Louisiana, as key product for Louisiana food producers.
For more information on MEPoL, visit www.mepol.org.

The Recipe Manager User Interface

The user interface is easy to use even for the computer novice. It has a very user friendly “Windows Explorer” looking style that supports touch-screen technology allowing restaurant staff at any level to find recipes or ingredients they need very quickly.

You can run Recipe Manager on any computer including regular desktop or laptop PC’s to small hand-held devices including tablet PC’s, making it simple to manage your data in the corporate office, restaurant back-office, or right from the front line in the palm of your hand.

Data Entry

To get started you simply enter your ingredient information and any important element/compound information given to you from your vendors. Recipe Manager will handle the rest.
When you build a recipe out of your ordered ingredients, you get a world of information at your finger tips including detailed costing by the portion or entire recipe, nutritional analysis, scaleable reporting, etc.

Features

More Info on Costing Features
More Info on Inventory Control Features
More Info on Purchasing / Ordering Features
More Info on Nutritional Analysis Features

Assistance

Besides a detailed manual, a help system, and Vydata toll-free Technical Support, Recipe Manager also comes bundled with a step-by-step demonstration that will walk you through the process when you get stuck.


You can download a copy of this demo right from our downloads page.

Powerful Add-On Tools

The system comes bundled with another tool for the creation of your own menus. You can setup your own menu with a number of recipes all scaled to your liking. For example, easily setup a “low carb menu” by doing a query on all your recipes with low carbs in the nutrition label, then simply add them to the menu. You can scale the entire menu down to a certain number of portions per recipe. At the click of a button, you can print any custom report for the entire menu, specific recipes, or all recipes at once.

Test Drive Recipe Manager

You can download a READ-ONLY trial version of the software with sample data right from our downloads page.

CASE STUDY : PICCADILLY RESTAURANTS, LLC
March 1, 2005
Contact: John Albin
Phone: (866) 272-6767 or (225) 272-6767
E-mail: sales@vydata.com

PICCADILLY STANDARDIZES ON RECIPE MANAGER

Piccadilly Restaurants, with corporate offices located in Louisiana, has 130 restaurants located throughout several southern states. Piccadilly upgraded from a competitor system (ChefTec) in early 2002 to Recipe Manager and never looked back. They complained of several limitations with the old system and was looking for alternatives. After several meetings with key Vydata Systems consultants to map out their needs, Piccadilly decided to adopt Recipe Manager as their corporate standard.

The system is currently installed and used at all Piccadilly restaurants along side the Menu Writer product for recipe menu generation.

“Recipe Manager is a fantastic product. It has helped our business track detailed cost and nutrition information better than our previously used program. In addition it has greatly enhanced our ability to quickly distribute detailed recipe information to all of our restaurants!”

Patrick Prudhomme
Vice President - Purchasing
Piccadilly Restaurants LLC

The system has helped Piccadilly provide the nutrition information required by USDA and desired by their customer base. Piccadilly strives for customer satisfaction and prides themselves on an elegant “home cooking” environment. Recently, Piccadilly entered nutrition information generated from Recipe Manager on their website.

Piccadilly Nutritional Information on the Web

Using this data analyzed by Recipe Manager allowed the design of a new “Low Carb Feature” menu for their restaurants.

The low carb revolution is at the top of its popularity. More and more customers are closely watching their calorie and carbohydrate intake each day. Recipe Manager facilitated the creation of a menu to provide a low-carb list of selections for their calorie counting carb-conscious customers.

At any time, a customer can request that a nutrition label be printed for their meal. Any restaurant employee can use the system to quickly generate the nutrional analysis report or label for any product while the customer waits. Nutrition labels can be printed for any specific item or an entire plate lunch/dinner.

In the future, using Recipe Manager allows Piccadilly to easily add the new up-coming “trans fat” requirement by USDA. Without a system to generate this nutrition data, Piccadilly would have to do a manual analysis on hundreds of recipes. This would be a very costly endeavor. However, Piccadilly is on-board with Recipe Manager which will drastically facilitate this transition! Adding new elements to a nutrition label is as easy as clicking and dragging a new element onto the label.

An example nutrition label report generated from Recipe Manager…

An example nutrition label detail report printed…

Note: The above screen shot and report is not reflective of actual Piccadilly recipes but is only an “example”.

The Piccadilly IT department adopted a data “push” strategy to update the database at each restaurant location automatically in order to centrally manage recipe data from the home office. The individual restaurants are only allowed to have a specific set of local menu variations while the corporate recipe list remains protected in a “read only” mode. After modifications are made to recipes at the home office, data is sent to all individual sites where Recipe Manager automatically synchonizes to keep information current without any local user intervension. This allows the restaurant site databases to remain updated at all times directly from the home office without the local staff even touching it! Recipe Manager provided Piccadilly Cafeterias with a seamless and simple integration into their current IT infrastructure.

Piccadilly tracks a number of custom fields that their old system (ChefTec) would not allow. For example, they track allergens for each recipe which include ingredients that may be a concern to people with severe allergy problems.

Piccadilly has recently moved to a new technology infrastructure by implementing Positouch Point-of-Sale software at all locations. They will be working on an interface from Recipe Manager to this system in the near future.

January 5, 2007
Contact: John Albin
E-mail: john.albin@vydata.com

VYDATA SYSTEMS BECOMES AN APPROVED 3RD PARTY CONSULTANT FOR LOUISIANA FOOD PRODUCERS

Food product manufacterers in Louisiana will now have an affordable resource available to them for detailed information tracking and cost control. Recipe Manager was adopted by an organization in late 2006 called MEPoL, Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Louisiana, who backs food producers throughout Louisiana by offering new technology and consulting services along with possible government funding if applicable.

Vydata Systems is an approved 3rd party consultant for MEPOL and will begin servicing the food production industry of Louisiana in early 2007 with their new Recipe Manager product. Recipe Manager has been used by catering companies and restaurant chains for years prior to the latest revision which includes special functionality geared toward food production needs.

MEPoL has been providing innovative and technical solutions to manufacturers since 1997. Their services are tailored to the individual needs of each client to maximize their profitability and productivity.

Any industry that adds value to their product and needs to improve their process, technology, and methods can receive affordable, expert technical support from MEPoL. Recipe Manager is now a powerful tool in their product offering.

January 1, 2007
Contact: Louisiana Restaurant Association

SMOKING NOW PROHIBITED FOR LOUISIANA RESTAURANTS

As of January 1, 2007, restaurateurs in Louisiana will no longer be able to allow their patrons to smoke inside their restaurants, though smoking will still be allowed in outside areas. This new law in Louisiana is very similar to new anti-smoking laws being adopted in other states. The LRA has designed “No Smoking” signs to post in establishments. To download and print these signs, you can go to the Louisiana Restaurant Association website at www.lra.org. For guidelines to understanding the non smoking law,
click here.

The Louisiana Restaurant Association is one of the largest business organizations in the state, representing more than 5,800 restaurant operations and related businesses. The restaurant industry in Louisiana is the state’s largest private retail employer with 140,000
employed directly and another 60,000 indirectly employed. Restaurants in Louisiana have an annual economic impact of $9.9 billion.

February 25, 2007 : Pittcon

Pittcon 2007, the largest science and analytical conference was held in Chicago, Illinois, in 2007. Vydata Systems visited the event and passed out brochures and spoke with many potential customers! For more information on this event, see www.pittcon.org.

August 4-6, 2007 : Louisiana FoodService Expo

The 2007 Louisiana FoodService Expo was visited by Vydata Systems personnel to meet with several potential customers at various booths. Vydata Systems did not have a Recipe Manager booth at this show in 2007, but we will plan to make a presence in 2008! For more information, see www.lra.org.

October, 2007 : Annual RM User Meeting

The 2007 user meeting at our new office space in Baton Rouge was a huge success. We had several customers that attended and brought some wonderful feedback for upcoming versions of Recipe Manager. Thanks to everyone who attended! In 2008 we plan on having the meeting at a customer site. So far we are discussing reservations of a meeting room at our customer’s restaurant, JUBAN’S in Baton Rouge, LA (www.jubans.com). Check back on our upcoming events page for more information!

If you are interested in attending any user conference, please email our sales group at sales@vydata.com. If you are planning an investment in Recipe Manager, this is a good way to evaluate the product and talk with other customers presently using it in their day-to-day business. Apply soon, however, because seating is limited!

August 5 - 7, 2006

53rd Annual Louisiana Foodservice Expo @ Ernest Morial Convention Center (New Orleans, Louisiana) www.lra.org. The event went really well and shows how a city (and state) can bounce back from such catastrofic events as last year’s storms. We were in booth #1934 right by SYSCO. Below are some pictures from the event.

Our booth:

“Where’s the BEEF?”
Our Sales and Service Department Managers man the booth…


View from our booth (SYSCO)…

August 6 - 8, 2005

52nd Annual Louisiana Foodservice Expo @ Ernest Morial Convention Center ( New Orleans, Louisiana) www.lra.org. We were in booth #1819. Below are some pictures from this event.

Our booth prior to opening the show opening on day 1:


The view of the show on day 1 after opening (a national cook-off with talented Chef’s from all over televised on the Food Network was right behind our booth):

October 21, 2005

Annual Users Group Meeting @ Quarters Lake Meeting Hall (8772 Quarters Lake Rd., Baton Rouge, Louisiana) was a huge success! Thanks to all who showed.

For more Information

Go to
Vydata Systems website.

2008 Happy New Year:

No events scheduled so far in 2008. Please check back periodically.

• Recipe Manager Trial / DEMO **

* The Recipe Manager Trial / DEMO is the complete Recipe Manager Enterprise version which also contains plenty of test recipes and inventory. Please be patience as it may take some time to download to your computer.

** Windows Vista user? Recipe Manager requires Administrator privileges to run, and this document shows you how to configure Recipe Manager to run with Administrator privileges in Vista.”

• Recipe Manager Full Sales Packet
• Recipe Manager Presentation
• Recipe Manager Brochure
• Recipe Manager Complete User Manual
• Recipe Manager Serial Number Request

Current Versions:

• RecipeMgr 2008.9.5
• MenuWriter 2008.9.5
• EnterprisePOS 2008.41.16

If your running a older version of Recipe Manager and need it updated, please contact us at sales@vydata.com or schedule a demonstration before you upgrade.

Find out more:

More Info on Costing Features
More Info on Inventory Control Features
More Info on Purchasing / Ordering Features
More Info on Nutritional Analysis Features

Vydata Systems

Vydata Systems is the developer of Recipe Manager and other innovative
products for both the restaurant industry as well as a number of other
industry. Check out the product line at Vydata Systems!

EnterprisePOS Suite of Business Software

Sometimes referred to as EPOS is a leading Point-of-Sale business
software that is being used in a number of various industries today
across the United States. Recipe Manager is actually a module within
this large suite of products!

Louisiana Restaurant Association

Recipe Manager will be at the annual Louisiana Foodservice Expo sponsored
by the Louisiana Restaurant Association. Check out their website for
more information!

MEPoL

Recipe Manager is an approved product offering of MEPoL,
Manufactering Extension Partnership of Louisiana. Check out their
website for more information!

USDA Nutrient Database

This site is the source for all nutrient data as managed by the government.
This is where Recipe Manager gets most of what it uses to do accurate
nutritional analysis on recipes.

System ID Warehouse

For all your sales hardware needs (cash drawers, receipt printers,
touch screens, hand-scanners, credit card readers, etc.) look here!
Recipe Manager and EnterprisePOS works wonderfully with hardware products
sold from System ID Warehouse.

What is Recipe Manager?

Recipe Manager is a powerful application for recipe data management. It is not only a tool for tracking detailed recipe data, but it also provides accurate ingredient / recipe cost control and nutrition analysis. It has many powerful capabilities and comes bundled with many reports ideal for chefs, catering companies, independent product producers, and reataurant management alike to keep tabs on the fast pace food service industry. It can be integrated into a number of leading Point-of-Sale / Service applications on the market today.

For more information about Recipe Manager product specifics please read our About page.

Why we developed Recipe Manager?

Recipe Manager was originally written in 2001 to address a number of short-comings in other similar products on the market.

1· Other systems were lacking reliable or simple nutrition label generation for food products (each time USDA changes anything it was a complex task to change the labels IF it was even possible).
2· Other systems were lacking reliable ingredient-level and sub-recipe cost tracking (when bundling recipes inside other recipes, calculation accuracy for costing and nutrition would suffer).
3· Other systems had inadequate order tracking (Purchase Orders) capabilities and/or were usually not interfaceable with major market point-of-sale systems.
4· Other systems had nonstandard user Interfaces - no Microsoft standards were adopted making it difficult to learn for Chefs and other restaurant staff.
5· Other systems did not incorporate the way Chefs work (for example, most systems displayed ingredient portions in difficult-to- use decimals instead of fractional values).
6· Other systems did not allow for much custom reporting - you were not allowed to do much more than change report column headings or titles. Building your own own set of reports with custom database queries was out of the question.

Recipe Manager does ALL THIS and more!!

What will Recipe Manager provide for me and my business?

Cost and nutrition control!

Until now, there has never been a low-cost alternative to having a full time Nutritionalist on staff. Recipe Manager gives you the capability of simply entering ingredient data received from your vendor, and it handles the rest! It comes bundled with a huge list of FDA/USDA standard conversions in order to calculate costs and do nutritional analyses for you. This allows you to quickly scale an entire recipe and print out a detail sheet, pictures of the dish, any attached documents, a nutrition label, a cost analysis sheet, or an unlimited number of your own custom reports! Recipe Manager is really an invaluable tool for total recipe data control.

How does the system work?

Recipe Manager is a database management system (DBMS) that is interfaceable with your current information technology (IT) systems.

You enter your ingredients first based on your vendor orders. For each ingredient ordered, you will need to enter the nutrition element details (cholesterol, calories, fats, vitamin content, etc.) provided to you from the vendor.

The nutrition element values that are MOST important are highlighted in red in the ingredient. These are the elements that are on the nutrition label.

That’s it! Now, simply add the ingredient into any recipe. The nutrition and cost information will be imported, converted to the proper units, and scaled accordingly to provide you with all the detail you need for the complete recipe.

Simply enter the “Nutrition” tab to generate a nutrition label as shown below…

Enter the “Costs” tab for a per-portion and complete cost analysis of the recipe, add pictures under the “Picture” tab, add important document attachments in the “Attachments” tab, or view/edit your own custom fields under the “Custom” tab.

Now, you can take it a step further and add this recipe into a custom menu. You can then further analyze your data by the entire menu!

How easy is the system to use?

Extremely. We have designed the system with the end user in mind. We know the users of this system are general food service staff and managers who’s specialty is not computers. The system was designed with keyboard shortcuts, an full on-line manual, a tutorial, and tooltips throughout the system to ensure you always have the help you need.

How are reports generated?

Reports may be generated from any screen by clicking the PRINT button. There are a number of standard reports, but the system comes bundled with its own Report Designer which can be used to build your own custom reports with any custom fields you wish to track.

Can the system be utilized for marketing purposes?

Absolutely. You can print reports on reorders and determine which recipe products move the quickest, then base a marketing campaign around your most popular products. You can do a seasonal or trend analysis to see if there are certain slow or peak times of the year. You can do a query on all recipes with low carbohydrates, for example, to build a “Low Carb Menu” to capitalize on this Atkins Diet revolution! The possibilities are endless!

Networking concerns?

Each license of Recipe Manager is a SITE license. This means you can load the system on as many computers as you want at any given location. The system is designed for a single-restaurant site but can easily work in a large restaurant chain environment.

Check out our customer case study on how Piccadilly Cafeterias uses the system.

Security concerns?

Important recipe data can be locked into a “Read Only” mode. The restaurant staff will then be able to see all data but not modify anything. This mode of operation protects you company’s data.

This is generally how the system runs in a restaurant environment. There is a small local database that sits on a server PC at the restaurant location. Corporate or home office data is “pushed” down into a designated folder, and the system resynchronizes the data the next time it is loaded. Even though the system is running in “Read Only” mode, the individual restaurants can still enter their own recipes into a “local site” category that does not interfere with the corporate recipe database. This allows the restaurants to provide a simple local menu or specials that may not be offered at the corporate level.

Recipe Manager Knowledge Base

To search the support database, enter up to 2 search criteria fields and click SEARCH below.

SUPPORT REQUEST FORM

Register Recipe Manager

To recieve FREE product updates, please register your product below by filling out all fields and clicking the SUBMIT button.

Register Recipe Manager

To recieve FREE product updates, please register your product below by filling out all fields and clicking the SUBMIT button.

Recipe Manager Terminal - Compact Desktop Edition

This touch-screen terminal is ideal for use in back-office or restaurant kitchens with limited space. Using touch-screen technology, there is no need for a mouse. a glossy see-through cover can be applied to the monitor and keyboard to protect it from smoke or grease.

Recipe Manager Terminal - Tablet PC Edition

A nice alternative to a standard PC or Laptop is the very space-efficient SlateVision Tablet PC. This all-in-one PC is a small portable unit with all the power and functionality of a standard laptop at only half the size. With this unit, restaurant staff could easily walk down the isle of a buffet or cafeteria line to check inventory levels and update stock levels right from their hand-held tablet PC.

Recipe Manager Terminal - Tablet PC Edition

A nice alternative to a standard PC or Laptop is the very space-efficient SlateVision Tablet PC. This all-in-one PC is a small portable unit with all the power and functionality of a standard laptop at only half the size. With this unit, restaurant staff could easily walk down the isle of a buffet or cafeteria line to check inventory levels and update stock levels right from their hand-held tablet PC.

Recipe Manager Terminal - Compact Desktop Edition

This touch-screen terminal is ideal for use in back-office or restaurant kitchens with limited space. Using touch-screen technology, there is no need for a mouse. a glossy see-through cover can be applied to the monitor and keyboard to protect it from smoke or grease.

Nutritional Analysis - How does it Work?

One of the most powerful and popular functions of Recipe Manager is its strict control of nutritional data. The system comes bundled with a database of FDA/USDA standard unit conversion formulas. When you enter your ingredients (or place orders) in specific units, Recipe Manager knows how to convert these units into the proper nutrition label units (generally in grams or milligrams).

These standard nutrition elements can be adjusted from the Nutrition Elements database screen in Recipe Manager.

Defining what information is used in your nutritional analysis for all recipes is simple. Just select the elements you want analyzed from a single screen and all recipe nutrition labels will automatically be adjusted.

By default the nutrition facts label follows the FDA/USDA-standard layout. However, you have a long list of elements to choose from if you need further detail, and you can drag and drop new elements anywhere on your label. This makes it simple to add newly required elements such as “Trans Fat”. Any future mandates by the government on what should appear on nutrition labels will not be a problem for Recipe Manager customers!

Any recipe can be scaled up or down to produce a detailed nutrition label based on a standard 2,000 calorie diet. This label can be printed on a product container, printed as a report for a customer, or posted to a website.

Another powerful nutrition tracking feature is the ability to take any recipe and treat it as an ingredient within another recipe. For example, a common use is to have a “combo plate” recipe that includes several dishes (recipes) in one. This allows the user to produce a detailed nutritional analysis for any single dish or the entire combo.

The following is an example of a more detailed nutrition label printed from Recipe Manager.

Printing Complete Nutrition Analysis Reports

Want to print a nutritional value chart or menu for display? No problem! You can print all your recipes based on a particular element value (all recipes that are low sodium, low carb, low fat, high fiber, high vitamin C, etc.)! You can take this data and print it to a custom report or export it for the web! It is getting more and more common to see these types of reports posted on websites or displayed in the entrance area of businesses. Customers love to see these types of reports given the recent surge in nutrition awarness.

Below is an example nutrition chart report from a Recipe Manager customer that displayes the information for their customers.

Purchasing / Ordering - How does it Work?

A very time consuming task for restaurant management is the task of handling reorders of ingredients. A “just-in-time” method of ordering product is key to ensure a proper inventory to meet demand and a low level of spoilage. The quicker the turn-around time of orders, the less guess work your management staff has to do to forecast sales demand.

Recipe Manager comes bundled with a “front-end” ordering system. What this means is it allows the user to enter any ingredient and see a history of orders, but it is not a Purchase Order system. However, it is very simple to interface it to a purchase order system. Once the interface is established into your PO system, you can see all the orders placed (open orders, received orders, back-orders, etc.) for an item just by clicking on the “Purchases” tab.

When interfacing to a Purchase Order system (such as the PO System module bundled in EnterprisePOS), Recipe Manager becomes the Restaurant Manager for you. It will determine when ingredient inventory levels are low and will notify the PO system to generate purchase orders when necessary.

As described within the Inventory / Interfacing page, the Menu Writer tool included with Recipe Manager will check the minimum stock (par) levels when product is committed for preparation. Any inventory item (ingredient) used that falls below par will initiate a notification for purchase order generation automatically. Recipe Manager watches the stock levels for you and tells your purchase order system exactly WHEN to order. However, a purchase order can be manually generated from within any inventory item record as well.

For example, if you wanted to manually generate an order for “flour”, you would first select the item in the “Inventory” section of Recipe Manager using the easy-to-use Windows Explorer user interface…

When you find the ingredient you want to reorder, simply open it to access the “Purchases” tab…

The “Purchases” tab for the item shows all order history. To add another order, just click ADD NEW.

To fire off a Purchase Order in the company POS system, simply click NEW PO. This button will be visible if the interface to a Purchase Order system is setup.

When the button is clicked, a purchase order in the POS system is instantly generated!

Once the PO is generated, Recipe Manager will track it within its own system. If the Purchase Order module is being used with Recipe Manager (as shown above), you can schedule your orders in Microsoft Outlook and be notified when the order is scheduled to be received the next day or so. Do this right from your email like a scheduled meeting! EnterprisePOS Purchase Order module will also auto-email or fax vendor orders for you!

With Recipe Manager and a compatible Purchase Order system, you will have the power you need to track purchases and orders easily to meet demand and minimize daily waste!

Inventory Control - How does it Work?

Recipe Manager handles inventory (par) levels based on information either obtained from an interface to a sales (Point-of-Sale) system or by manually entering product sold. When inventory falls below set levels, you can configure Recipe Manager to automatically generate a purchase order. Recipe Manager can be configured to launch an external purchasing program for the generation of new orders.

Recipe Manager can Interface to a number of popular information systems including MICROS, POSitouch, Digital Dining, EnterprisePOS, etc.

Recipe Manager can also be configured to interface to other in-house developed or less popular systems through a simple file transfer process as well.

Once your sales information is entered into Recipe Manager via an interface or through manual entry, the exact amount of product to prepare for any given day is automatically determined from a sales/usage forecast. Your chef simply references the menu for the time period (shift, day, week, etc.) through our Menu Writer tool that comes standard with Recipe Manager. For the preparation and printing of daily product menus, planning restaurant production, and control of inventory levels, the Menu Writer tool makes a Chef’s job simple!

The Menu Writer Tool - The Interface Key

The Menu Writer tool in Recipe Manager allows the user to build custom menus and control the amount prepared of each assigned product (recipe) for any given time period. This tool bridges the gap between the raw recipe data and actual product for consumption. This tool can be configured to interface to a POS system to pull sales forecast information for calculation of the exact amount to prepare of each menu item in order to maximize supply to meet demand while minimizing waste.

When stock falls below the set par levels once menu products are prepared, a notification is sent to generate a Purchase Order. Once again, if the interface is configured, Recipe Manager can tell a PO system to generate the order for you automatically.

A manual notification can be created to generate a purchase order as well right from an inventory item when the user notices an item may be getting a little too close to par.

Recipe and Menu Costing - How does it Work?

Tracking exact cost from end products to raw materials is always a challenging endeavor for the fast-paced food service industry. However, highly accurate cost control on all levels is a specialty of Recipe Manager.

Cost control in Recipe Manager happens at the smallest possible level, on a per-unit basis from a single ingredient portion, calculated directly from your inventory purchases. All unit conversions are performed automatically when ingredients (inventory) are added to your recipes. Both the single portion and complete recipe cost is generated for you. A price can be entered for further analysis of your profit margins!

When a recipe is opened, simply access the COSTS tab…

You’ll see a list of ingredients that contribute to this recipe’s cost in the table below. For each ingredient, there is a cost that is tallied into the total recipe cost information at the top of the tab.

Based on the recipe’s “yield” (for example, this recipe yields 55 Orders), the “portion” (for example, each single portion or serving of this recipe equals 9 ounces), and the “num portions” (the total number of portions you can get out of the yield) values will determine exactly what the actual cost numbers are.

Cost values are tracked to the penny by the single portion (in this example, a single 9oz portion of this example jambalaya recipe COSTS the restaurant $0.51) or all portions (in this example, the entire yield of 55 portions COSTS the restaurant exactly $27.98 to produce). From these cost numbers a profit margin can also be derived when a price is entered.

With this kind of complete cost tracking by recipe or portion, you can take it one step further! Cost tracking for an entire menu!

Introducing the Recipe Manager Menu Writer tool…

Our Menu Writer tool allows you to custom-build your own menu templates. Once you build a menu, recipes can be added which can be scaled up or down. These portions (called “Amount Prepped” in this example) will be the factor that determines costing for each individual recipe (row) or the entire menu.

In the example picture above, this user created a menu called the “KITCHEN MENU” and entered the recipes for this menu for Monday Mornings. You can customize the menu template (field names, field positions, label headers, etc.) and the recipes that are included in the menus. The end user, generally the Chef, will use the menu you designed to adjust the recipes and amount prepped for the day. Total pan sizes as well as costs are tracked.

This kind of detailed cost tracking capability allows the users to track how well a specific menu or recipe is doing. Reports can be printed to show this detail in any format (pie charts, etc.) and the data can be sent to any accounting software for further analysis!

Recipe and Menu Costing - How does it Work?

Tracking exact cost from end products to raw materials is always a challenging endeavor for the fast-paced food service industry. However, highly accurate cost control on all levels is a specialty of Recipe Manager.

Cost control in Recipe Manager happens at the smallest possible level, on a per-unit basis from a single ingredient portion, calculated directly from your inventory purchases. All unit conversions are performed automatically when ingredients (inventory) are added to your recipes. Both the single portion and complete recipe cost is generated for you. A price can be entered for further analysis of your profit margins!

When a recipe is opened, simply access the COSTS tab…

You’ll see a list of ingredients that contribute to this recipe’s cost in the table below. For each ingredient, there is a cost that is tallied into the total recipe cost information at the top of the tab.

Based on the recipe’s “yield” (for example, this recipe yields 55 Orders), the “portion” (for example, each single portion or serving of this recipe equals 9 ounces), and the “num portions” (the total number of portions you can get out of the yield) values will determine exactly what the actual cost numbers are.

Cost values are tracked to the penny by the single portion (in this example, a single 9oz portion of this example jambalaya recipe COSTS the restaurant $0.51) or all portions (in this example, the entire yield of 55 portions COSTS the restaurant exactly $27.98 to produce). From these cost numbers a profit margin can also be derived when a price is entered.

With this kind of complete cost tracking by recipe or portion, you can take it one step further! Cost tracking for an entire menu!

Introducing the Recipe Manager Menu Writer tool…

Our Menu Writer tool allows you to custom-build your own menu templates. Once you build a menu, recipes can be added which can be scaled up or down. These portions (called “Amount Prepped” in this example) will be the factor that determines costing for each individual recipe (row) or the entire menu.

In the example picture above, this user created a menu called the “KITCHEN MENU” and entered the recipes for this menu for Monday Mornings. You can customize the menu template (field names, field positions, label headers, etc.) and the recipes that are included in the menus. The end user, generally the Chef, will use the menu you designed to adjust the recipes and amount prepped for the day. Total pan sizes as well as costs are tracked.

This kind of detailed cost tracking capability allows the users to track how well a specific menu or recipe is doing. Reports can be printed to show this detail in any format (pie charts, etc.) and the data can be sent to any accounting software for further analysis!

Recipe Manager Example Reports

The following are examples taken from our sample database. Click on a report below to see a print-out. The columns list reports in the order of recipes, menus, and inventory reports from left to right.

• Recipe List
• Chef Menu
• Recipe List Cost
• Chef Menu w/ Pics
• Customer Menu
• Nutritional Analysis
• Customer Menu w/ Pics
• Recipe Detail
• Menu Cost Detail
• Recipe Detail w/ Pics
• Menu Nutrition Facts
• Recipe Cost Detail
• Recipe Nutrition Label
• Excel Invoice/Quote

February 25, 2007 : Pittcon

Pittcon 2007, the largest science and analytical conference was held in Chicago, Illinois, in 2007. Vydata Systems visited the event and passed out brochures and spoke with many potential customers! For more information on this event, see www.pittcon.org.

August 4-6, 2007 : Louisiana FoodService Expo

The 2007 Louisiana FoodService Expo was visited by Vydata Systems personnel to meet with several potential customers at various booths. Vydata Systems did not have a Recipe Manager booth at this show in 2007, but we will plan to make a presence in 2008! For more information, see www.lra.org.

October, 2007 : Annual RM User Meeting

The 2007 user meeting at our new office space in Baton Rouge was a huge success. We had several customers that attended and brought some wonderful feedback for upcoming versions of Recipe Manager. Thanks to everyone who attended! In 2008 we plan on having the meeting at a customer site. So far we are discussing reservations of a meeting room at our customer’s restaurant, JUBAN’S in Baton Rouge, LA (www.jubans.com). Check back on our upcoming events page for more information!

If you are interested in attending any user conference, please email our sales group at sales@vydata.com. If you are planning an investment in Recipe Manager, this is a good way to evaluate the product and talk with other customers presently using it in their day-to-day business. Apply soon, however, because seating is limited!

 January, 2007 : MEPoL

Recipe Manager is now a key product offering for MEPoL (Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Louisiana) food production customers. We’ll be moving forward with software integration / interfacing with key production systems during the first month of 2007. For more information on MEPoL, see www.mepol.org.

February 25, 2007 : Pittcon

Pittcon 2007, the largest science and analytical conference will be held in Chicago, Illinois. Look for a Recipe Manager booth! For more information, see www.pittcon.org.

August 4-6, 2007 : Louisiana FoodService Expo

The 2007 Louisiana FoodService Expo is scheduled in early August this year. Look for a Recipe Manager booth! For more information, see www.lra.org.

September, 2007 : Texas Expansion

To offer better service for our Houston-Dallas-Austin -San Antonio customers, we are looking into office space in the Houston, Texas area. We are excited about expansion of business operations in this area. We expect the new office to be opened sometime around the September-October 2007 time frame.

October, 2007 : Annual RM User Meeting

The 2006 user meeting at Quarters Lake was a success! We plan on making accommodations at our new office space in Baton Rouge for the next meeting. More information is to come! If you are interested in attending, please email our sales group at sales@vydata.com. If you are planning an investment in Recipe Manager, this is a good way to evaluate the product and talk with other customers presently using it in their day-to-day business. Apply soon, however, because seating is limited!

For more Information

Go to Vydata Systems website.

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ABOUT Recipe Manager

Recipe Manager is a powerful application for back-room recipe information management and production control. It is a tool for tracking recipe detail, micro-managing costs of product and ingredients, analyzing nutrition detail, building product menus, and a host of many other features for a variety of food service businesses.

Ideal for Restaurant Chefs

It is the ideal package for Chefs to control their food production. It can be interfaced with a number of leading point-of-sale systems to determine exactly the amount to prepare of each menu item based on daily sales forecasts. It will make sure the correct amount of product is produced to meet demand and minimize waste.

Ideal for Catering Businesses

It is the ideal package for Catering businesses. You can quickly design custom menus with food products specific for the catering job at hand. After a menu is built for a customer, all assigned recipes (and ingredient portions) are scaled exactly for that amount to be prepared. You’ll also know your exact cost and profit for any catering job as you build the menu since Recipe Manager tracks cost down to the fractional ingredient used!

Ideal for Food Product Manufacterers

It is the ideal package for independent producers of food products. Recipe Manager not only tracks all your food product detail, but it will even produce a container product label for you. Design your own container label from Recipe Manager with the actual FDA “Nutrition Facts” right on it!

Recipe Manager was recently adopted by MEPoL, Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Louisiana, as key product for Louisiana food producers.
For more information on MEPoL, visit www.mepol.org.

The Recipe Manager User Interface

The user interface is easy to use even for the computer novice. It has a very user friendly “Windows Explorer” looking style that supports touch-screen technology allowing restaurant staff at any level to find recipes or ingredients they need very quickly.

You can run Recipe Manager on any computer including regular desktop or laptop PC’s to small hand-held devices including tablet PC’s, making it simple to manage your data in the corporate office, restaurant back-office, or right from the front line in the palm of your hand.

Data Entry

To get started you simply enter your ingredient information and any important element/compound information given to you from your vendors. Recipe Manager will handle the rest.
When you build a recipe out of your ordered ingredients, you get a world of information at your finger tips including detailed costing by the portion or entire recipe, nutritional analysis, scaleable reporting, etc.

Features

More Info on Costing Features
More Info on Inventory Control Features
More Info on Purchasing / Ordering Features
More Info on Nutritional Analysis Features

Assistance

Besides a detailed manual, a help system, and Vydata toll-free Technical Support, Recipe Manager also comes bundled with a step-by-step demonstration that will walk you through the process when you get stuck.


You can download a copy of this demo right from our downloads page.

Powerful Add-On Tools

The system comes bundled with another tool for the creation of your own menus. You can setup your own menu with a number of recipes all scaled to your liking. For example, easily setup a “low carb menu” by doing a query on all your recipes with low carbs in the nutrition label, then simply add them to the menu. You can scale the entire menu down to a certain number of portions per recipe. At the click of a button, you can print any custom report for the entire menu, specific recipes, or all recipes at once.

Test Drive Recipe Manager

You can download a READ-ONLY trial version of the software with sample data right from our downloads page.