Written by: JJ Tan, Founder, Jelly | Last updated: 20 July 2026
Key Takeaways for Busy UK Kitchens
- Jelly helps UK kitchens sort ingredients into produce, proteins, dairy and dry goods in minutes using automatic invoice scanning.
- Category-level tracking supports control of the 28–35% of revenue usually spent on food and beverage, with real-time price alerts on every invoice line.
- Mobile-first counting lets chefs complete stocktakes in 5–20 minutes instead of hours, directly from the walk-in or dry store during service.
- Automatic unit conversions and recipe linking keep dish gross profits accurate and current without manual calculations or spreadsheets.
- UK kitchens using Jelly report average gross margin gains of 2 percentage points within three months; see Jelly in action for your own kitchen.
Core Restaurant Inventory Categories and How Jelly Uses Them
UK commercial kitchens often organise inventory into produce, proteins, dairy and dry goods. These groups carry the highest cost exposure and spoilage risk, so they need the tightest count cadence. Jelly mirrors this structure directly. The table below shows how each category maps to real UK ingredients, the units Jelly tracks, and the recommended count frequency based on spoilage risk and cost exposure.
| Category | UK Ingredient Examples | Common Units in Jelly | Count Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Produce | Heritage tomatoes, watercress, Maris Piper potatoes, courgettes | kg, each, bunch | Weekly |
| Proteins | 28-day aged beef fillet, Cornish cod, free-range chicken breast, lamb rack | kg, portion (g), each | Daily or weekly for high-value cuts |
| Dairy | Double cream, Westcombe Cheddar, unsalted butter, crème fraîche | litre, kg, each | Weekly |
| Dry Goods | Tipo 00 flour, arborio rice, Maldon salt, dried porcini, tinned San Marzano tomatoes | kg, g, each, case | Monthly |
Food and beverage costs typically represent 28–35% of restaurant revenue, so category-level tracking becomes a primary lever for gross profit improvement. Proteins and high-value seafood often represent a large share of total raw material cost despite being a small proportion of total SKUs. Jelly surfaces price alerts as soon as a supplier invoice changes a line-item price, which keeps those costs visible.
Ready to see the category setup in action? See how Jelly organises your produce, proteins, dairy and dry goods in a single session.
Setting Up Restaurant Inventory Categories in Jelly
Effective categorisation aligns storage layout, count schedule and cost reporting in one consistent structure. Grouping inventory by proteins, produce, dairy and dry goods simplifies cost reporting and enables targeted investigation when a category runs 3–5% over theoretical usage. This structure shifts team conversations from vague directives to specific actions.
In Jelly, each of the four categories carries its own unit-conversion logic, so the system adapts to how each ingredient type is actually purchased and used in a working kitchen. Proteins are typically purchased in kilograms from a meat supplier but portioned in grams per dish. Jelly converts automatically, so no manual calculation is required when building a recipe. The same principle applies to produce, which is often ordered by the case or kilogram and used by the each or bunch, with Jelly tracking both the purchase unit and the recipe unit at the same time.
Dairy follows a similar pattern. Cream might be purchased by the litre and used in millilitres per portion, and Jelly handles the conversion while updating the dish cost when the cream price changes. Dry goods complete the picture. Flour purchased in 16kg sacks is used in grams per batch recipe, and Jelly calculates cost per gram from the invoice price and applies it to every dish that uses that ingredient. The result is a system that mirrors the natural workflow of a kitchen rather than forcing chefs to adapt their process to the software.
Mobile counting workflow during service
Manual inventory checks are routinely pushed to late evening because service takes priority during the day, which keeps kitchen staff on administrative tasks instead of operational improvements. Jelly’s mobile-first design removes that constraint. A chef can open Jelly on a phone, navigate to the relevant category and enter counts directly from the walk-in fridge or dry store, without leaving service or returning to a desktop. Sushi Revolution’s monthly stocktake using Jelly takes 5–20 minutes, down from 2–3 hours previously.
Watch a chef complete a full stocktake in under 10 minutes live on mobile.
Building a Simple Inventory List for a Busy Kitchen
Once you have organised your ingredients into categories, the next step is building a practical counting workflow. A simple inventory list for a busy kitchen can be completed on a mobile phone, organised by storage location rather than alphabetically, and updated in real time as invoices arrive. UK pubs using spreadsheets spend 4–6 hours per week on stock takes, while dedicated inventory software helps complete stock counts more quickly.
The Jelly mobile counting workflow follows six steps.
- Open Jelly on your phone and select the Kitchen section.
- Choose the category to count: Produce, Proteins, Dairy or Dry Goods.
- Walk the relevant storage area, such as the walk-in fridge, freezer or dry store.
- Enter quantities against each ingredient as you go, and Jelly displays the current unit cost from the latest invoice.
- Save the count, then Jelly calculates your stock value and flags any variance against theoretical usage.
- Review the Price Alert feed for any ingredient that has changed cost since the last delivery.
Restaurant managers using manual inventory methods often spend 15–20 hours per week on physical counts, ordering and invoice reconciliation. Jelly automates the invoice-to-cost pipeline, which significantly reduces the time required for most UK kitchens. Amber restaurant in East London saves £3,000–£4,000 per month through invoice automation, real-time costing and price-change alerts, which delivers a return of roughly 68 times the platform cost.
Jelly charges a flat £129 per month per location with no per-user fees and no variable charges. Onboarding generates initial value within the first week. Price alerts and spending insights go live as soon as suppliers send invoices to a dedicated Jelly email address, or within 24 hours of photographing invoices into the app.
Jelly vs MarketMan, meez, Parsley and Kitchen Cut
The table below compares Jelly against four commonly evaluated alternatives across criteria that matter most to busy UK kitchen teams. All figures are drawn from published product information and verified customer outcomes.
| Criteria | Jelly | MarketMan | meez | Parsley | Kitchen Cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category setup time | Quick setup | Multi-day onboarding | Recipe-focused | Manual CSV import required | Requires dedicated setup team |
| Mobile counting | Full mobile workflow, no desktop required | Available but complex UI | Recipe-focused, limited stock count | Basic mobile view | Desktop-first design |
| Live price alerts | Automatic on every invoice line item | Available on higher-tier plans | Not a core feature | Manual price update required | Periodic, not real-time |
| Recipe linking to live costs | Automatic; dish GP updates on every invoice | Available; requires manual recipe build | Strong recipe costing; limited invoice automation | Available on paid tiers | Available; static pricing model |
| Onboarding time to first value | Under 1 week | Several weeks | Variable | 1–2 weeks | Months; requires dedicated resource |
| UK flat monthly price (single site) | £129 | Higher; variable by tier | USD pricing; no UK flat rate | Variable | Enterprise pricing |
Real Results from UK Kitchens
Amber, a Mediterranean restaurant in East London run by Chef-Owner Murat Kilic, has used Jelly since 2020 and consistently saves £3,000–£4,000 per month through automated invoice processing, price-change alerts and real-time recipe costing. Before Jelly, volatile supplier pricing and manual spreadsheet work were eroding margins without Murat being able to identify the source quickly enough to act.
“Jelly keeps my business alive.” — Murat Kilic, Chef-Owner, Amber
The pattern repeats across different kitchen types.
- Stuart Noble, Head Chef, Cairn Lodge Hotel: “Price hikes were crushing our margins, I felt helpless. With Jelly, every dish cost is up-to-date at my fingertips. We slashed food costs by 5% in a month.”
- Ruth Seggie, Owner, The Howard Arms: “Our accountant said we’d be lucky to hit 60% gross profit. After using Jelly, we reached 80%. Now I sleep better knowing my costs are under control and can react instantly, not weeks later.”
- Mirella, Head Chef, Cafe Murano: “Jelly is making my life 1000 times better.”
- Holly, Operations Director, Social Pantry: “All the tools on the market require so much manual work. Jelly is so simple to use, I can’t see myself running the business without it.”
Sushi Revolution in South London uses Jelly to set separate target gross profits on dine-in and delivery menus, accounting for 30% delivery commissions, and has achieved gross profits 2–3% higher on average as a result. The time savings mentioned earlier, with stocktakes reduced from hours to minutes, form part of a broader margin improvement for Sushi Revolution.
Conclusion: Protecting Margin Through Simple Category Control
Throughout this article, you have seen how category-level tracking, using produce, proteins, dairy and dry goods, gives UK kitchens a foundation to control costs in real time. Food waste costs the UK hospitality sector an estimated £3.2 billion annually, and typical operations can experience variance when inventory and purchasing systems are not integrated. For a UK kitchen turning over £500,000 in food spend, this variance can mean significant sums leaving the business undetected every year.
Organising inventory into clear categories such as produce, proteins, dairy and dry goods creates the operational structure that makes cost control possible. Jelly builds that structure quickly, keeps it live with every invoice and surfaces the price changes and margin shifts that matter before they compound into a problem.
At a flat monthly price per site, with a one-week onboarding and a proven 2-percentage-point GP lift within three months, the case for switching from spreadsheets stays straightforward. See how Jelly organises your ingredient categories in a single working session.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main categories for food inventory in a UK restaurant kitchen?
Many UK commercial kitchens organise food inventory into produce, proteins, dairy and dry goods. Produce covers fresh vegetables, herbs and fruit. Proteins include meat, poultry, fish and seafood. Dairy includes cream, butter, cheese and milk. Dry goods include flour, rice, pasta, tinned goods and spices. Some operations add a fifth category for beverages and a sixth for packaging and disposables, but the core structure covers most food cost exposure for restaurants, pubs and boutique hotels. Proteins usually represent the largest share of total ingredient cost and require the most frequent counting, while dry goods carry lower risk and can be counted monthly.
How does Jelly handle unit conversions across different ingredient categories?
Jelly automatically manages unit conversions between the purchase unit on a supplier invoice and the recipe unit used in dish costing. For example, if beef fillet is purchased in kilograms but portioned in grams per dish, Jelly calculates the cost per gram from the invoice price and applies it directly to every recipe that uses that ingredient. The same logic applies across all four categories, including litres to millilitres for dairy, cases to individual units for produce and sack weights to grams for dry goods. Chefs do not need to perform any manual conversion, because the system handles it when the recipe is built and updates it automatically whenever a new invoice arrives with a changed price.
How long does it take to set up inventory categories in Jelly?
Setting up ingredient categories in Jelly takes a short amount of time. The process involves logging in, creating the category names and then either photographing supplier invoices or forwarding them to a dedicated Jelly email address. Jelly scans every line item automatically and populates ingredients into the system. Chefs then assign each ingredient to its category and begin building recipes by clicking on the populated items. Most kitchens generate price alerts and spending insights within 24 hours of their first invoice upload, and the full onboarding process, including recipe costing and POS integration, is typically complete within one week.
Can Jelly work alongside the POS system already in use in my kitchen?
Jelly integrates natively with Square, Lightspeed, EPOS Now and Toast via real-time API. Each integration delivers item-level sales data the moment a transaction completes, which Jelly uses to calculate live gross profit margins by dish. Connecting a supported POS takes about five minutes. Open Jelly, click Integrations, sign in to the POS, grant permissions and select which categories to sync. Once connected, the POS and Jelly work together so that every sale automatically updates the cost and margin picture across all four ingredient categories without any manual data entry.
What is the difference between Jelly and a spreadsheet for managing multiple ingredient categories?
A spreadsheet requires manual data entry every time a supplier invoice arrives, manual price updates when costs change and manual recalculation of dish costs and gross profit margins. UK pubs using spreadsheets spend 4–6 hours per week on stock takes with medium accuracy, while those using dedicated inventory software can complete the same work more quickly with higher accuracy. Jelly replaces the manual steps with automated invoice scanning, live price alerts and real-time dish costing. When a supplier increases the price of a protein, Jelly flags the change immediately and recalculates the gross profit margin for every dish that uses that ingredient, without the chef opening a spreadsheet.