You know what time the bread needs to be on the shelf. Everything else, you work out in your head every evening: proving time, baking time, cooling time, kneading time. That calculation often crosses midnight, which is exactly where a spreadsheet or a notebook starts to let you down.
Who the application is for
For bakers and pastry makers who want to know what time to start kneading, check they have the ingredients they need, and know the cost and waste rate of each batch. It installs on top of a free foundation shared by the food trades, which carries recipes, allergens and customer orders.
What the application does
- Works backwards from the shelf time you want to the kneading time, the start and end of proving, the time into the oven and out of it, even when the calculation lands the day before.
- Lists the batch's ingredient needs, scaled to the recipe and in gross quantities, trimming included, then flags what is missing against stock.
- Carries the batch's ingredient cost over from the recipe's cost price, scaled to the batch size.
- Tracks the quantity baked and the quantity left unsold for each batch, with a rate worked out against what was baked, which can still be entered on a batch already locked.
- Flags overlaps between two batches assigned to the same oven, without reorganising anything on your behalf.
- Checks the sequence of steps entered by hand and names precisely which step is at fault if there is an error.
Day to day
- Enter your four durations on the batch: kneading, proving, baking, cooling. None of them is suggested by default.
- Enter the time you want the product on the shelf and click Schedule backwards: the whole chain fills in, even when kneading falls the evening before.
- Work out the ingredient needs: the list to pull from stock appears, with anything missing clearly flagged.
- Assign the batch to a declared oven; an overlap with another batch raises a flag, for you to judge whether it is acceptable.
- In the evening, mark the batch as baked, then enter the quantity left unsold: the rate is worked out on what was baked, not on what was planned.
What the application does not do
- It does not optimise anything: not oven loading, not oven capacity, not a suggested schedule. It flags things, it does not reorganise the night for you.
- It does not consume any stock and does not create any manufacturing order: ingredient needs are displayed, never reserved.
- It does not suggest any kneading, proving, baking or cooling time: these are always yours to set.
- It does not manage customer pre-orders, which remain in the free foundation shared by the food trades.
Getting started
First install the free foundation shared by the food trades, then declare your ovens with their capacity. Before your first backward scheduling, enter your own kneading, proving, baking and cooling times on a batch: a duration left at zero shifts nothing rather than inventing a figure.
Going further
To find out whether this application suits your business and how to activate it, compare the plans or write to us.