Founded in 2021, Libby's started as a pop-up in London. After being advised to eliminate sugar and gluten from his diet for medical reasons, founder Simon Wolanski approached pastry chef and Masterchef winner Keri Moss to develop products using fructooligosaccharides (FOS) as a sugar replacement and gluten-free flowers.
The products were a hit, not only with Simon but with his friends and family. Already owning a catering business, Simon knew he had a range of products with commercial appeal. The pop-up was a success, drawing in the local community. It wasn't long before Libby's opened its first permanent site in Notting Hill to expand distribution and sell online.
Unlike Simon's previous business, Libby's sold baked goods directly to customers likely to have allergies or intolerances that needed reliable nutritional information on the labels.
The Challenges
Automating the flow of information from ingredient to the label
Ingredients and recipes change. Ensuring the labels change, so the customer receives the correct information is crucial. The alternative manual method using spreadsheets would require someone to go into each tab or document and update each to reflect the recipe alteration.
Managing ingredients in one place to improve accuracy
Multiple databases with various sources make it hard to manage, update and review information. With no place to go for a single truth or a unified view with all the information needed, time is not only lost searching for the correct information but also analysing it.
Viewing historical data to make future decisions
Manual methods, especially spreadsheets, override information when saved, losing the wealth of knowledge in previous versions.
There needs to be a way to look back at the history of a recipe to see how they've changed regarding ingredients and price.
Scaling, converting and calculating
Demands change for products, and so does supply. Both directly impact recipe information. Scaling recipes up and down affects ingredient usage, cost to you and the customer, and the yield for servings. There are many measurement units, and the unit the ingredient is supplied in can sometimes be different from the unit the recipe requires.
Manually calculating how a recipe scales is a lengthy process as each ingredient needs individually scaling, and converting units could be as simple as grams to kilograms or as complex as millilitres to cups.
The Solution
Auto-generated labels from a live recipe database
Recipe labels auto-generate after creating a recipe and auto-update whenever there is an alteration to the ingredient or recipe information. No need to calculate the effects of the change, Kafoodle is completely integrated createing a seamless flow of information.
A single database with a complete view
A single ingredient database which updates in real-time means every user has the same information. A single view lets users see every ingredient or recipe on a single screen using the Kafoodle Datasheet feature. Datasheet results can be filtered, and columns can be edited to provide precise results.
A complete historical audit
Kafoodles ingredient and recipe database provide complete traceability on ingredient and recipe change events. Libby's can see the information updated, added or removed with quantity and unit value. The change event is timestamped and logged against a user profile to see who made the changes and when.
Instantly recalculate and repurpose
Kafoodles recipe builder equips Libby's with the ability to apply multiple unit conversions. A recipe scaling tool means recalculating the recipe values is as simple as inputting the number of servings required. The nutritional values will recalculate accordingly, and the costing calculation will present new costs to produce, a profit margin percentage and variance in line with the target gross profit set.
The Result
Effortless changes and instant updates
Changes to ingredients and recipes now update across the entire system. Changes to an ingredient will affect every recipe that uses it, updating the nutritional and cost value whilst creating a new template inside the label library attached to each recipe. Information can be added and removed from labels at the click of a button and formatted on a ready-to-print sheet.
"An all-encompassing recipe management solution"
Simon Wolanski
Libby's Sugar & Gluten-Free Bakery
Easy to find and use data
Users can view recipes on one easy-to-filter page and access allergen, nutrition and cost datasheets presented in a matrix format. The datasheets can be printed or exported for further analysis. Allergen and nutrition datasheets have a built-in labelling feature, so Libby's can bulk-create labels for the recipes in the datasheet view.
Better knowledge of the past for an improved future
Libby's now has historical data of all the changes made to an ingredient or recipe. Whilst this is great for traceability and quality purposes, comparing it with other data delivers valuable insights. For example, determining how the changes in a recipe's price or ingredient affected sale volumes.
Rapid reactions to new opportunities
The unit conversion feature and serving scaling calculator means a change in order volume or a new outlet to sell in can be accommodated instantly. Every nutritional value is updated, and Libby's can ensure they remain profitable with the recipe costing calculator alerting users if the actual GP drops below the target GP associated with the recipe.
Advice from founder Simon Wolanski
"Be very clear about the features you need and understand your process and legal requirements. Don't be overwhelmed by a system with features you don't need or want to use; you can often only use the needed parts."
