Best Kitchen Inventory Software UK 2026 | Restaurant Guide

Key Takeaways

• Kitchen inventory software helps UK restaurants, pubs, and hotels control volatile supplier costs, reduce manual invoice work, and protect dish profitability.
• The most useful platforms offer automation, real-time insight into margins, simple onboarding, and integrations with your existing POS and accounting tools.
• Jelly focuses on automated invoice capture, live dish costing, and price alerts for growing UK venues with annual revenue above £500,000.
• Stocktake Online, Supy, and Growyze each suit different needs, from detailed stocktaking and compliance to AI-driven procurement and process-focused operations.
• You can explore whether Jelly fits your sites by booking a short conversation: Talk to Jelly about automating your kitchen management.

Making the Smart Choice: Essential Criteria for Kitchen Inventory Software

You need kitchen inventory software that matches how your UK hospitality business runs today and will grow tomorrow. Focus on:

• Automation capabilities: Features such as automated invoice scanning, data entry, and price alerts reduce manual effort and improve data accuracy. Manual systems are error-prone and lead to outdated data, so automation becomes important once volumes increase.
• Real-time insights: Live dish costing, instant gross profit reporting, and dynamic sales mix analysis help you act on issues before they hit month-end accounts.
• Ease of implementation and user adoption: Quick setup and a clear interface support busy chefs and managers who have limited time for training.
• Scalability and multi-site support: The platform should handle one venue or many, without requiring a complete system change as you expand.
• Integration ecosystem: Compatibility with your POS and accounting tools, such as Xero or Sage, keeps data connected and reduces duplicate entry.
• Total value: The best tools improve efficiency, protect margins, and save time, so the subscription cost is covered by measurable gains.

Jelly: The Smart Choice for Automated Kitchen Management

Jelly suits growing UK restaurants, pubs, and boutique hotels that want to automate core back-of-house tasks and improve profit control. The platform is built for businesses beyond the small family-run stage, typically with annual revenue above £500,000.

Key features and benefits:

• Automated invoice scanning and digitisation: The system captures every invoice line item, so you do not spend hours on manual data entry each week.
• Real-time flash and price alert reports: Instant updates on ingredient price changes and daily gross profit margins support faster, more confident decisions.
• Live dish costing and menu engineering: You build dishes from scanned ingredients and see costs and gross profit in real time, which supports menu pricing and recipe tweaks.
• Xero integration: One-click invoice export to Xero cuts bookkeeping time; users often report around a 90% reduction in manual bookkeeping effort.
• Rapid onboarding and time-to-value: New sites usually see value such as price alerts and spending insights in the first week. Many Jelly users cut food costs by about 3% within three months, adding roughly two percentage points to gross margin.

See how Jelly can automate your kitchen management and protect your margins.

Comparing Top Kitchen Inventory Software for UK Hospitality

This comparison outlines how leading kitchen inventory platforms differ for UK operators.

Stocktake Online: Strong Stock Control for Detail-focused Teams

Overview: Stocktake Online provides inventory management with features tailored to UK compliance and detailed stocktaking.

Strengths: The platform supports real-time stock control via mobile scanning, automated purchasing, recipe and allergen management with auto-cost updates, and supplier discrepancy detection. It handles multi-site operations with centralised dashboards. Users achieve significant time savings on stocktakes and ordering.

Best fit: Larger sites or groups that place a high priority on physical stock accuracy, traceability, and complex recipe management.

How Jelly differs: Stocktake Online focuses on deep stock control and compliance, while Jelly centres on invoice automation and profit insights from line-item data. Jelly also offers a simpler interface for teams that prefer a lighter system with faster onboarding.

Supy: AI-led Cost Control for Multi-branch Operators

Overview: Supy serves multi-branch food and beverage groups that want AI-supported control from purchasing through to waste.

Strengths: Features include AI cost control, procurement workflows, real-time stock views, dashboards, and live cost of goods visibility across integrated POS, accounting, and ERP tools.

Best fit: High-volume, multi-site enterprises that need advanced procurement features and centralised analytics.

How Jelly differs: Jelly narrows the focus to automated invoices and live dish costing for UK operators that want clear profit gains without a complex procurement stack. The emphasis sits on turning invoice data into margin improvements quickly.

Growyze: Process-focused Control for Growing UK Businesses

Overview: Growyze is a UK platform that supports purchasing, stocktakes, recipes, waste tracking, and invoice reconciliation for growing hospitality businesses. The product was a finalist in the 2025 Best of UK Small Business Awards.

Strengths: Process-based workflows help teams reduce waste and improve control in both venues and head office.

Best fit: Operators that want structured processes to manage day-to-day operations and reduce waste, rather than deep financial analysis.

How Jelly differs: Growyze concentrates on process discipline, while Jelly places invoice data at the centre of instant profit analysis. Features such as price alerts and live dish costing give Jelly a more direct focus on margin gains.

Other Notable Solutions

Fourth provides inventory management with AI forecasting aimed at reducing food waste. Craftable offers back-office hospitality tools that track inventory use and cost. Mews POS includes restaurant inventory tracking to ingredient level. Square for Restaurants and Lightspeed Restaurant both include POS-linked inventory, and Lightspeed often uses third-party apps for more advanced controls.

Beyond Features: Total Value of Ownership for UK Hospitality

The right choice depends on overall value, not just a feature checklist.

• Implementation and onboarding: Your team should reach day-to-day use quickly. Jelly, for instance, is designed to show value such as price alerts in the first week.
• Training needs: Simple, intuitive layouts help chefs and managers who have limited time for software training.
• Ongoing support: Reliable support and low daily admin effort keep the system working as menu, staff, and suppliers change.
• Scalability: The platform should adapt from a single venue to multiple locations without a disruptive switch.
• Profit impact: Many Jelly customers report cutting food costs by about 3% and adding around two gross margin points in the first three months.

Finding Your Perfect Fit: A Decision Framework

Different scenarios point to different platforms.

• Growing UK restaurants, pubs, or boutique hotels with revenue above £500,000 that want rapid profit gains from automated invoice insights and live dish costing are usually best served by Jelly.
• Groups that prioritise detailed stocktakes, multi-site compliance, and extensive reporting often prefer Stocktake Online.
• Large, multi-branch enterprises that need AI-driven procurement and complex integrations may lean toward Supy, with its broader enterprise focus.

Jelly offers a balance of targeted automation, ease of use, and fast financial impact for owners and chefs who want real-time cost control.

Discuss whether Jelly is the right fit for your venues.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How quickly can I see a return on investment with kitchen inventory software?

Operators that use automated invoice capture, such as Jelly, often see clear value such as price alerts and spend visibility in the first week. Many then see meaningful food cost reductions, often around 3%, within three months.

Can kitchen inventory software help with volatile supplier pricing in the UK?

Price alert tools flag ingredient increases as soon as invoices are uploaded. These alerts allow chefs and owners to query suppliers, renegotiate, or adjust menu prices before margins erode.

Is kitchen inventory software difficult for non-tech-savvy chefs to use?

Modern platforms focus on simple workflows, so chefs can build dishes from scanned ingredients and review costs without complex steps. Choosing software designed for hospitality teams, rather than generic business tools, keeps the learning curve short.

How does this software integrate with my existing POS and accounting systems?

Most leading options integrate with common POS solutions for flash reports and sales mix analysis, and with accounting tools such as Xero for invoice posting. These integrations reduce manual entry and centralise financial data.

What should I expect to pay for quality kitchen inventory software?

Entry-level tools often start around £50 to £100 per month, while more comprehensive platforms can range from £129 to more than £300 per location. Jelly uses a flat rate of £129 per month per location, with no extra user or feature charges, so you can compare cost directly against savings from lower food costs.

Conclusion: Use Jelly to Unlock Kitchen Profit in 2026

Inefficient kitchen management reduces profit for growing UK hospitality businesses. Kitchen inventory software gives you the information needed to control costs, protect margins, and reduce admin time.

Jelly focuses on automated invoices, live dish costing, and instant price alerts that give clear, real-time cost visibility. The platform helps owners, chefs, and finance teams regain control of back-of-house costs.

See how Jelly can support your kitchen profitability in 2026.