Batch: Food Cost Calculator
Know what every serving really costs — then price it, bake it, and waste less.
Contact
Questions, bug reports, feature ideas — email is read by a human:
Please mention your iOS version and, if relevant, the recipe or pantry item involved. Screenshots help a lot.
How costing works
- Where does the unit cost come from?
- You enter what you pay at the store — for example $3.49 for 2 kg of flour. Batch divides the price by the usable amount. If you set a waste percentage (peels, trim, spillage), the usable amount shrinks and the unit cost rises accordingly. That is intentional: waste is part of what you pay for.
- A recipe line shows $0.00 — is that a bug?
- A line costs $0.00 when it has no ingredient selected, a quantity of zero, or a unit that cannot be converted to the ingredient's package unit. Weight and volume do not convert into each other (Batch does not guess densities), so an ingredient bought by the litre must be used in ml, l, tsp, tbsp or cups — not grams.
- What do the food cost colours mean?
- Food cost is the ingredient cost as a share of your selling price. Under 30% shows green (healthy), 30–40% orange (tight), above 40% red — the common rule of thumb in food businesses.
- How are sub-recipes counted?
- A sub-recipe is measured in servings of that recipe. If your frosting batch makes 10 servings and a cake uses 4, the cake carries 4/10 of the frosting's batch cost. Batch prevents loops — a recipe can never contain itself, directly or indirectly.
Pantry, baking and the shopping list
- Why doesn't my pantry item match a recipe ingredient?
- Matching is by name (case doesn't matter) and measurement type. "Flour" in the pantry does not match an ingredient called "All-purpose flour" — rename one of them so they are identical. A pantry item counted in pieces will not cover an ingredient bought by weight.
- What exactly does "Bake this batch" do?
- It deducts the recipe's ingredient amounts (at the scale you selected) from matching pantry items, using the soonest-expiring stock first. Quantities stop at zero. There is no undo yet — if you baked by mistake, edit the pantry quantities back.
- When do expiry reminders arrive?
- At 09:00, the chosen number of days before the expiry date (set in Settings, 1–14 days). The reminder is scheduled when you save the item, so changing the setting affects items you save afterwards, not ones already scheduled. If a reminder didn't arrive, check that notifications are allowed for Batch in iOS Settings.
- The widget seems out of date.
- The widget updates whenever the app changes the pantry, and re-ages its day counts automatically over midnight. If it looks stale, open the app once — editing any pantry item refreshes it.
Free, Pro and purchases
- The free version includes 3 recipes with the complete costing, pricing and scaling tools, unlimited ingredients, and the full pantry, reminders, widget and shopping list.
- Batch Pro is a single one-time purchase: unlimited recipes, sub-recipes, and PDF cost sheets. No subscription.
- New iPhone, or reinstalled the app? Purchases follow your Apple Account: Settings → Restore Purchases.
Sync and moving to a new device
Batch stores your data on the device and syncs it privately through your own iCloud account. On a new device, sign in to the same Apple Account and your recipes, ingredients and pantry appear on their own after a short while. Without iCloud, Batch simply works locally.