FoodCore handles the operational side of running a meal prep business — recipe costing, Natasha's Law compliant labels, weekly order tracking, and automatic shopping lists by supplier. So you can spend more time cooking and less time on admin.
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Running a meal prep business in the UK is a logistics problem as much as a cooking problem. Every Monday (or whenever your cut-off falls), a new set of orders arrives. Every week, the menu changes. Every box needs an accurate allergen label. Every customer might have a different dietary requirement. And before any of that, you need to know what to order from your suppliers and whether each meal is actually profitable.
Most meal prep businesses manage this with a patchwork of tools — a spreadsheet for recipe costs, a Word document for labels, a separate notes app for orders, and a WhatsApp thread with suppliers. It works until it doesn't. The moment a customer has a nut allergy and you're not entirely sure whether the marinade you used this week contains tree nuts, the system breaks down. And with Natasha's Law in force since October 2021, getting allergen information wrong on a pre-packed meal is a serious legal and safety issue, not just an admin failure.
Meal prep management software built specifically for this workflow closes the gap. FoodCore connects your recipe data to your labels, your orders to your shopping list, and your ingredient costs to your per-meal margin — in one place, updated automatically as things change. Whether you run a weekly subscription box service from a commercial kitchen or a fitness-focused macro meal prep operation, FoodCore is built for exactly this kind of business.
It is also the only meal prep business software in the UK that includes Natasha's Law PPDS label generation as a core feature — not an add-on. Every boxed meal you produce is a PPDS product. Every PPDS product legally requires a full ingredients list with all 14 major allergens highlighted in bold. FoodCore generates those labels directly from your recipe data, and updates them automatically whenever a recipe changes.
Meal prep is one of the most operationally demanding food business models. Here's what makes it hard — and how FoodCore addresses each problem.
Your menu changes every week based on what's in season, what's selling, and what stock your suppliers can deliver. Every change means updating recipes, recalculating costs, regenerating labels, and rebuilding the shopping list. Without software, this takes hours. FoodCore makes it minutes.
Customer A is allergic to sesame. Customer B is intolerant to dairy. Customer C follows a strictly gluten-free diet. Tracking which meals are safe for which customers — across a changing weekly menu — is genuinely dangerous to do manually. FoodCore's allergen matrix gives you a clear view of every allergen across every recipe.
A recipe written for 4 portions needs to scale accurately to 80 or 200 portions for batch cooking. Ingredient ratios, cooking times, and portions all change. FoodCore scales recipes precisely and recalculates ingredient quantities for your shopping list automatically based on the week's order volume.
When ingredient costs go up — and they do — you need to know immediately which meals are no longer profitable. Manually recalculating cost per meal across 15 weekly recipes when supplier prices change is not practical. FoodCore gives you real-time cost per portion and margin percentage across your whole menu.
Under Natasha's Law, every boxed meal is a PPDS product requiring a full ingredient list with allergens in bold. Manually creating compliant labels for 12 different meals, reprinted every week when the menu changes, is error-prone and time-consuming. FoodCore generates print-ready, compliant labels from your recipes.
You might source from three or four suppliers — a wholesale butcher, a veg box scheme, a dry goods supplier. Working out what to order from each, in the right quantities for the week's orders, is a significant planning task. FoodCore generates your shopping list automatically, broken down by supplier, based on orders and recipes.
Purpose-built features for UK meal prep operations — from recipe to delivery.
Enter your ingredient costs and FoodCore calculates the exact cost per portion for every meal on your menu. You'll see your gross margin percentage per meal at a glance — and when ingredient prices change, the margin dashboard updates automatically. Know which meals are working and which are eating into your profit before you cook a single box.
Every boxed meal is a pre-packed for direct sale product under UK food law, which means every box needs a full ingredients list with all 14 major allergens highlighted in bold. FoodCore generates these labels automatically from your recipe data — print-ready, allergen-accurate, and updated the moment you change any ingredient. No more manually formatting Word documents.
Log each customer's weekly order against your menu. FoodCore tallies how many portions of each meal you need to produce, feeds that into your production schedule and shopping list, and keeps a history of each customer's orders. When a returning customer asks what they had three weeks ago, you have the answer immediately.
FoodCore calculates exactly what ingredients you need to buy for the week, based on your current orders and recipes. The shopping list is broken down by supplier, with quantities in the units you order in. No more manually adding up portions across recipes to work out how many kilos of chicken breast to order. You place your orders from a single, accurate list.
FoodCore's allergen matrix shows you every meal on your current menu against all 14 major allergens — at a glance. You can immediately see which meals are free from specific allergens, which is essential when a customer asks "what can I eat this week?" You can also filter your menu by allergen to identify safe options for customers with specific requirements.
FoodCore helps you sequence your batch production efficiently — grouping meals by cooking method, oven time, or protein type so you're not switching between entirely different workflows mid-cook. A structured production schedule means less waste, better use of your kitchen time, and meals finished in the right order for packing and delivery.
FoodCore works for every type of meal prep business operating in the UK — from solo founders to small teams with commercial kitchens.
If you run a weekly meal subscription — customers choosing from a rotating menu, with a Friday cut-off and a Monday delivery — FoodCore is built for your workflow. The weekly order cycle drives everything: what you cook, what you buy, and what labels you print.
Delivering daily lunches to offices or co-working spaces requires the same operational rigour as consumer subscriptions — per-head costing, allergen-safe options, labelling, and a daily shopping list. FoodCore handles all of it, and scales as your client base grows.
If your customers are tracking calories, protein, or macros, accurate nutritional data is as important as allergen information. FoodCore calculates macros per portion from your ingredient data and keeps them updated automatically as recipes change — no manual nutritional calculations required.
Care settings have some of the most demanding allergen and dietary requirements in the food sector — multiple residents with different needs, strict documentation requirements, and serious consequences for errors. FoodCore's allergen tracking and label generation helps care catering teams manage this complexity systematically.
Specialising in vegan, halal, or gluten-free meal prep creates additional compliance requirements. FoodCore lets you mark allergen-free status clearly, filter your menu by dietary category, and generate labels that reflect these attributes accurately — giving your customers confidence in every meal.
Why meal prep businesses move away from manual tools to purpose-built software.
UK meal prep businesses using FoodCore to manage their weekly operations.
"We prepare 200+ individual meal boxes every week. FoodCore keeps our recipe costs accurate, generates allergen-compliant labels for every meal, and creates our shopping list by supplier automatically. What used to take half a day on Sunday now takes about 20 minutes."
"When customers have specific allergen requirements, I can check instantly with FoodCore's allergen matrix — no more manually searching through recipe cards trying to remember whether the Thai green curry contains sesame. It's all there, clearly, for every meal on this week's menu."
"The production scheduling feature helps us batch efficiently. We cook in the right order and waste almost nothing now. Before FoodCore we'd sometimes end up with sauce made but nothing to put it on, or proteins cooked faster than the sides. Now it flows properly."
Most meal prep businesses start with spreadsheets — Excel or Google Sheets for recipe costing, Word documents for labels, and a separate order tracking system. The problem is that none of these talk to each other. When a recipe changes, you have to update the spreadsheet, the label, and the order sheet separately. FoodCore is purpose-built meal prep management software that connects recipe costing, allergen management, PPDS labels, shopping lists, and order tracking in one place.
Yes. If you box up meals before the customer picks them up or takes delivery — which is the standard meal prep model — those meals are classified as pre-packed for direct sale (PPDS) under UK food law. Natasha's Law requires every PPDS product to carry a full ingredients list with all 14 major allergens highlighted in bold. FoodCore generates these labels automatically from your recipe data, so every box leaves your kitchen with a compliant label. See our food labelling software page for more detail.
Yes — this is one of the core use cases FoodCore is built for. You can update your weekly menu, adjust recipes, swap ingredients, and FoodCore regenerates all affected labels and shopping lists automatically. There's no need to manually update separate documents for each change. Your shopping list for the week is always based on the current recipes and current order volumes.
FoodCore starts at £19/month for the Essentials plan, which covers recipe costing, allergen management, PPDS labels, and order tracking. The Core plan is £55/month and includes all features including production scheduling and multi-supplier shopping lists. Both plans include a 7-day free trial with no card required. Most meal prep businesses save more than the subscription cost in admin time within the first week.
FoodCore tracks macronutrients — calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fat — per recipe and per serving, which is essential for fitness and macro-tracked meal prep businesses. Your nutrition data is connected to your recipe data, so it updates automatically when you adjust a recipe. This makes it straightforward to present accurate nutritional information to customers.
Every feature included. No card required. Cancel any time. Recipe costing, compliant labels, shopping lists, and order tracking — all in one place from £19/month.
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