Overview: Brands

Warning: entering a brand name for a recipe ingredient will affect the way your shopping list and food orders display their ingredients. To understand how brand names affect your shopping list and food orders please ensure that you read this topic in full.

Note: entering a brand for a recipe ingredient is optional i.e. you don't have to enter one, just leave the brand field blank which is the most common practice.

Although our list of ingredients contain a couple of exceptions, the ingredients within My Recipe Manager are not designed to represent different 'brand' names. The reason for this is due to the large number of brands that are available for any given ingredient. If, for example, there were 60 different brands of plain flour, 60 different brands of self-raising flour and 60 different brands of wholemeal flour, you would need to scroll through 180 flours to locate the one you wanted. What if the brand isn't listed or the brand becomes obsolete? Instead of scrolling through hundreds or even thousands of ingredients, all with different brand names, all you need to do is select from a base ingredient name e.g. plain flour, self-raising flour or wholemeal flour (which is fine for most schools). However, if you do require a specific brand to be purchased then all you need to do is enter the brand name in the 'Brand' field for that recipe ingredient which then clearly indicates on the shopping list that a specific brand is to be purchased for that recipe ingredient. If that brand is not available to purchase you would need to consult with the teacher that requested it to see if another brand or a generic brand was suitable.

How Do Brands Impact a Shopping List?

To explain how brands impact a shopping list we will use the above example of 'Fewster's Farm' organic honey for three recipes.

Example 1: Leaving the 'Brand' Name Blank for all Three Recipes

In this example you have:

three different recipes which each require 50 gms of organic honey.
for the ingredient you select 'Honey (organic)'.
for all three recipes you don’t enter a brand for the organic honey i.e. you leave 'Brand' blank.
you add these three recipes to a food order i.e. one of each recipe.

Your shopping list will display a single line for 'Honey (organic)' and indicate that you need to purchase a total of 150gms.

Example 2: Entering a 'Brand' Name for One of the Recipes

For a particular recipe you may want to purchase 'Fewster's Farm' organic honey. From the list of ingredients you would select 'Honey (organic)' and for 'Brand' you would enter 'Fewster's Farm'. In this example you have:

three different recipes which each require 50 gms of organic honey.
for the ingredient you select 'Honey (organic)'.
for one of the recipes you enter 'Fewster's Farm' as the brand of honey that you want to purchase and use for this recipe.
for the other two recipes you don’t enter a brand for the organic honey i.e. you leave 'Brand' blank.
you add these three recipes to a food order i.e. one of each recipe.

Your shopping list will now display two lines for 'Honey (organic)':

one line indicating that you need to purchase 100 gms of organic honey and
one line indicating that you need to purchase 50 gms of 'Fewster's Farm' organic honey.

Example 3: Entering a 'Brand' Name for All Three Recipes

For all three recipes you want to purchase 'Fewster's Farm' organic honey. From the list of ingredients you would select 'Honey (organic)' and for 'Brand' you would enter 'Fewster's Farm'. In this example you have:

three different recipes which each require 50 gms of organic honey.
for the ingredient you select 'Honey (organic)'.
for all three of the recipes you enter 'Fewster's Farm' as the brand of honey that you want to purchase and use for these recipes.
you add these three recipes to a food order i.e. one of each recipe.

Your shopping list will display a single line indicating that you need to purchase 150gms of 'Fewster's Farm' organic honey.

Note: the more brands you enter for a specific ingredient the more lines for that ingredient will appear on your shopping list. For example, if you had ten recipes and each of them had a different brand of plain flour recorded against them your shopping list will have ten individual lines of different branded plain flours to be purchased.

Note: if you don't use any brand names then your shopping list will display as normal i.e. one line for each different ingredient.