In order to build a Recipe, you must first have the Ingredients for the Recipe. You can use the food items included in the database or add your own.
To add your own, you will have to have some sort of documentation that has the nutrient breakdown for your Ingredient. This will be a certificate of analysis, an ingredient spec sheet, a lab analysis or even an existing nutrition facts label.
Log in to Genesis Foods with your email and the password you received from your admin. You will land on the program Dashboard.
On the Dashboard, click New Ingredient.
You will land on the Ingredient page. From here, you can complete all the tasks required for creating an Ingredient and access other, nonessential, features.
Names & Tags
Name
In order for your Ingredient to be used in a Recipe, it must have a name. Your organization will likely have established best practices for naming that you should use. If not, we recommend that you agree on a naming system before you get started using Genesis Foods.
To name your Ingredient
Type the name of your Ingredient in the Name text field. The Name entry can accommodate letters and numbers. Example: Vegetable, raw, sweet potato, 8”
To clear out the name text
Click the round X icon.
Aliases
An Alias is an optional shortened or more user-friendly version of your Ingredient’s name. Aliases can be used in your ingredient statement or on reports. You can enter as many Aliases as you want for your Ingredient.
For example, if the name of your Ingredient is something like Fruit, Apple, Fuji, medium, with peel, your Aliases might be something like Fuji apple or just apple.
To enter an Alias
Type any alphanumeric combination in the text field.
Press Enter on the keyboard
Optional: Select from the available existing tags:
Click in the Tags field
Enter search terms by typing on top of Search for a tag
Click a tag to add it to your Recipe.
Tags can only be added and deleted from the Options screen
Weight
This is the weight of the ingredient for which you will enter nutrient amounts. Ninety-nine percent of the time, this will be 100 grams, but you should use whatever is on your spec sheet, certificate of analysis or other ingredient nutrient documentation. 100 grams has been pre-populated for you.
To enter a weight and unit of measure, type in the Weight amount and select the Unit.
Nutrients
Select U.S. Label Nutrients Mandatory or U.S. Label Nutrients All. U.S. Label Nutrients Mandatory is the list of 15 nutrients required on your U.S. Nutrition Facts. The U.S. Label Nutrient All list contains all mandatory and voluntary nutrients and is a much longer list. However, if you will be using any voluntary nutrients on your Label, you should definitely use this list.
Populate the nutrient values. If you have selected the U.S. Label Nutrients All list, it’s helpful to use the search to find individual nutrients you wish to populate. Note: The nutrients are listed in the order they will appear on your Label. When you enter a nutrient value, that nutrient’s %DV will be automatically calculated for the recommendation you have selected.
Conversions
If you creating a liquid Ingredient and your nutrients are entered per weight, here is where you will enter the Volume Conversion. The program will use this conversion to display an appropriate liquid amount on the Label. You can only add one liquid conversion per ingredient.
Volume Conversion
Click Add Volume Conversion
Enter the quantity and the volume measure
Enter the equivalent amount per gram weight.
Click Save.
If you want to add common household or other non-weight measures (for both liquids and solids), you would do that under Unit Conversions
Unit Conversion
Click Add Unit Conversion
Enter the quantity and the household measure
Enter the equivalent amount per gram weight.
Click Save.
Allergens
Regulations require the declaration of any allergens present in your food product. For this reason and, more importantly, for consumer-safety purposes, Genesis Foods initially assumes that all Ingredients contain all allergens.
Not correctly declaring an allergen on your package can have serious regulatory, financial and consumer-health consequences. As such, Genesis Foods includes a variety of allergen declaration safeguards.
When you first create an Ingredient, you will notice two things:
All of the allergens are in the Contains bucket
There are a number of alerts there, in the Contains Preview and in the alert banner at the top.
Your task, then, is to make sure the allergens are all in their correct bucket, and that the alerts have been resolved.
This is done by removing, not adding.
Contains or Not Present
Again, all of the allergens are initially in the Contains bucket. Everything here will appear in the allergen statement preview at the top, and certain allergens (fish, shellfish and tree nuts) require specific types or species. When you have determined that your product does not contain an allergen, you can move it to the Not Present bucket.
It’s important to note that:
All allergens will always be in one of the buckets.
No allergens will be hidden, so you can always refer to the allergen section to easily and quickly see what allergen declaration decisions you made.
To move an allergen from the Contains to the Not Present bucket, do one of the following:
Click the right arrow
Drag and drop
Notice that when you move an allergen to the Not Present bucket, its alerts disappear.
Those allergens that remain in the Contains bucket will appear in the allergen statement preview. Remember, shellfish, fish and tree nuts must display the specific type or species.
To display a specific type or species
Click the link.
From the list, select the specific type or species. Use the type-ahead to narrow the selections.
Once you have selected the species, the alert will disappear and the species or type will appear in the Contains Preview in alphabetical order.
May Contain
The May Contain bucket lets you declare allergens that could be present in your food due to processing or other reasons. You are not required to declare these allergens, but if you do, you must also declare the specific type or species of fish, shellfish or tree nuts.
To move an allergen from the Contains to the May Contain bucket, do one of the following:
Click the right arrow
Drag and drop
To move an allergen from the Not Present to the May Contain bucket, do one of the following:
Click the left arrow
Drag and drop
Those allergens that remain in the May Contain bucket will appear in the allergen statement preview. Remember, shellfish, fish and tree nuts must display the specific type or species.
Copy/Paste
Once you have set up your Contains (and/or May Contain) statement, you can copy either or both statements to the clipboard as plain text.
Notes, Images, Attachments and Custom Fields
By completing the above tasks, you now have an Ingredient you can use to build a Recipe and its compliant Label. The remaining functions — Notes, Images, Attachments and Custom Fields — are not required for labeling and packaging, but are here to help you customize and organize your foods.
Notes
Anything you want to add to this Ingredient that there isn’t an existing field for can go here. It is a simple text-entry field.
Images
The image you upload here will appear at the top of the Ingredient page.
Attachments
You can attach any type of document to this Ingredient, including (and we recommend this) your spec sheet or COA.
Custom Fields
You can associate up to three Custom Fields with your work and pin them to the top of your page. The Custom Fields will appear regardless of what you’re currently working on.
Once you have finalized your Ingredient, you or the authorized user can click Approve. Genesis Foods will save the ingredient in that state, and you will not be able to edit the Approved version If, however, you open this Approved Ingredient and make any changes to it, Genesis Foods will automatically create a new editable version and call it something like: “V1. Draft.”