What CottageBee does

All of it used to live in a notebook, a spreadsheet, and a folder of documents you kept copying between.

Ingredients and allergens

Every ingredient is entered once, with its allergen information attached. Anything built from that ingredient inherits it. A recipe knows what is in it, and so does every label you print from that recipe, so a label can never contradict what you actually put in.

Complex Ingredients can be built from other ingredients, and the allergen information carries through those too.

Recipes that keep their history

Recipes change. One click creates a new version instead of overwriting the last one, so the batch that worked in March is still there in September. Or after that great idea turns out not to be (we have all been there).

Old versions can be archived to keep your working list short without losing them. When you want to know what actually changed between two versions, recipe compare shows you step by step.

Variants sit alongside a base recipe. Make the same cookie dough with different mix-ins, without duplicating the whole recipe.

Labels from the recipe

Ingredient statements and allergen text are generated from the recipe itself, not retyped. Change an ingredient and the labels that use it follow.

Thermal labels print your product's required information, your state's required text, and your own logo. They can carry a barcode too, so checkout at the market is a scan.

Optional front labels print on standard sheets from included templates. Drag-and-drop editing makes them easy to lay out, and any design can be copied and reused on your next product.

Knowing what is on hand

There are two sides to this, because they are genuinely different jobs.

In the kitchen, CottageBee tracks ingredients, packaging, and consumables as you check purchases in and use them up. That is what tells you whether you can bake this weekend.

At a stand, it tracks finished product for that stand or location, so it keeps one running count there rather than starting fresh for each outing.

Selling at the market

Sell from your phone with a native CottageBee application. Scan a product's barcode, take the payment, and see the day's takings broken out by payment method (card, cash, or whatever else you accept).

Sales totals are there any time you check. Want today, yesterday, or any date range you pick? It rolls up across as much as a year.

Keep a separate inventory for each place you sell: the farmers market, a roadside stand, wherever else you set up.

What a product costs

Every recipe step is priced from what you last paid for that ingredient, drawn from your own purchase history rather than a guess. Steps total to a recipe cost, and a variant shows its base, its variation, and the combined figure.

Packaging is costed the same way. Each packing material carries its own unit cost from what you paid for it, so a product's packaging cost per pack is a real figure rather than a guess.

See the price you set, what the product costs you, and the margin left when it sells. No spreadsheet, and no export to build one.