Prep and use-by labels
Tap what you just made, opened or thawed and its label prints: the time, your initials, and a use-by worked out from how long you say it keeps, with a colour and the day's three letters. A board shows what's due today and tomorrow, and what keeps getting thrown out.
Help and background Back to the tool
How it works
- 1 Set out what you label, once: its name, whether it's made, opened or thawed, how long it keeps in hours or days, where it's kept, and what it contains. Start from a few made-up items, or a blank one.
- 2 Tap what you've just made and its label is queued. Say how many, when it was really made if it wasn't just now, and its own date if a pack date comes sooner.
- 3 Print on a label printer's roll or on a Letter sheet of 30, starting at the first empty label of a part-used sheet. Each label has the time, your initials, the use-by and a day colour.
- 4 Mark each batch used up or thrown out as it goes. The board shows what's past its date, what's due today and tomorrow, and what keeps getting thrown out.
Free, with no account. The labels are worked out and printed from this page: your items, initials and labels are never sent to us or put in a link. Remember keeps them on this device, and only while it's on.
Good to know
- How is the use-by counted?
- In days, it runs to the end of a day. Counting the day it's made as day 1, something that keeps 3 days and is made on Monday is used by the end of Wednesday; not counting it, the end of Thursday. Pick the way your kitchen counts. In hours, it runs from the minute it was made, and the label prints the time. If you give it its own date, like an opened carton's best-before, the sooner of the two goes on the label.
- What do the colours mean?
- Each day of the week has a colour, in a scheme many kitchens use: Monday blue, Tuesday yellow, Wednesday red, Thursday brown, Friday green, Saturday orange and Sunday black. Check it against the one your kitchen uses. The colour can show the use-by day or the day it was made, and the day's three letters print too, so a label still reads in black and white or on a printer with no colour.
- Can I print a label again?
- Yes, from the board, and it keeps the first dates. A new label never buys more time. There's also a blank week to print: a few labels for each day, in its colour, to write in by hand.
- How long does food keep?
- That number is yours: from your recipes, your suppliers and your health unit. The starter items have made-up shelf lives for you to change. This is a labelling aid, not food-safety advice: follow your health unit's rules.
Where it fits in a restaurant
Before the doors Check the delivery, the fridges and the line, then prep to par and label it.
Its work comes from
A hand-off only moves when you press it, and never through a link: signed in, the next tool reads your account's book; signed out, it waits in this browser until the next tool picks it up.
Before the doors
More for this part of the day
Receiving check
Check each delivery at the door: probe the cold and frozen lines, tick what's wrong, and take or refuse each one. The credit to ask for writes itself, prices that crept up are flagged against your price book, and every supplier gets a scorecard.
Save it: every delivery kept in your account for a year, for the inspector
Fridge & freezer log
Log every fridge and freezer at each round in one go. A warm reading starts the clock, and the month prints for the binder.
Save it: your temperature log, round by round
Pre-service line check
Walk the line before the doors open: probe the cold and hot wells, check labels, tastes, stock and tools, station by station. A miss can't be signed off until it's fixed, food out of the cold runs on a two-hour clock, and you see which rail keeps running warm.
Save it: your line and every check kept in your account
Prep list from pars
Set a par for each prep item once. Each day, say how busy tonight looks and count what's on hand, and get the list in whole batches: what's out, what's low and what can wait. A timeline across your cooks starts the long simmers first and checks it's all ready by service.
Save it: your prep items, pars and today's count