FoodCore gives small catering businesses recipe costing, allergen management, Natasha's Law labels, shopping lists, and order tracking in one system. From £55/mo, every feature included.
7-day free trial · no card required · £55/mo after
Catering management software is a dedicated system that helps catering businesses manage the core operational tasks involved in running a catering operation: recipe costing, allergen tracking, food labelling, supplier shopping lists, and customer order management. Rather than relying on a combination of spreadsheets, Word documents, and manual calculations, catering management software brings all of these tasks into one connected system where data flows automatically between them.
Small and medium catering businesses in the UK — including event caterers, wedding caterers, corporate caterers, school caterers, care home caterers, and meal prep businesses — use catering management software to price events accurately, meet UK allergen law requirements, generate compliant food labels, and manage customer orders without the admin overhead of manual methods. The best catering software UK businesses use combines these functions in one affordable system rather than requiring separate tools for each task.
Small catering businesses face a particular operational challenge: large, frequently changing menus, events that require precise ingredient quantities, and customers who need detailed allergen information. Most manage this with a combination of spreadsheets, Word documents, and experience — a system that works until it doesn't.
The cost problem is significant. Catering events are priced in advance, often weeks or months before the event. If ingredient prices change between quoting and delivery, your margin erodes. Without a system that tracks recipe costs in real time, you're pricing on outdated information. The caterers who stay profitable are the ones who know their costs precisely and reprice when costs change. Good catering software for small business solves this by linking ingredient prices directly to recipe costs — so any price change cascades through every recipe automatically.
The allergen problem is equally serious. Catering businesses are legally required to provide accurate allergen information for every dish they serve. For an event with 10 dishes and 50 guests, some of whom have allergies, managing allergen information manually is both time-consuming and risky. A mistake can have serious consequences. The best catering management software UK businesses rely on should make allergen compliance straightforward, not an afterthought.
FoodCore is built for small catering businesses that need professional-grade tools without enterprise-grade complexity or pricing. Recipe costing, allergen management, food labels, shopping lists, and order management in one system. One flat price — £55/month, every feature included, no per-user fees. The kind of catering business software that was previously only accessible to large catering operations, now available to small businesses at a fraction of the cost.
From recipe costing to event allergen management — in one system.
FoodCore calculates the cost per portion of every recipe based on your ingredient prices. Update a supplier price and every recipe recalculates automatically. Price events accurately based on current costs.
Track all 14 UK-required allergens across your entire menu. Generate an allergen matrix for any event — showing which dishes contain which allergens. Essential for events with guests who have dietary requirements.
Generate compliant PPDS labels for any pre-packed products you sell — full ingredients list in legal order, allergens highlighted in bold. Labels update automatically when recipes change.
FoodCore generates a shopping list from your event schedule — aggregated by supplier, with quantities calculated from your recipes and scaled to the number of portions required.
Log customer orders and events, track what needs to be produced, and manage your production schedule. See what's due and what's been completed at a glance.
Scale any recipe to the number of portions required for an event and FoodCore recalculates all ingredient quantities, costs, and the shopping list automatically.
Whether you cater events, weddings, offices, schools, or deliver meal preps — FoodCore adapts to your workflow. This is event catering software and everyday kitchen software in one.
Event catering is one of the most operationally demanding forms of food business. Every job is different: a different venue, a different guest count, a different menu. You're pricing months in advance, then sourcing ingredients weeks later when costs may have changed. You're managing allergen queries from clients before the event and from guests on the day. And you're generating a shopping list — often across multiple suppliers — for each individual job.
FoodCore is designed around exactly this workflow. Your recipe library is the single source of truth: every recipe has its cost per portion calculated automatically from current ingredient prices, its allergen information tracked at ingredient level, and its scaling built in. When you log an event in FoodCore and select which dishes you're serving, it generates a scaled shopping list aggregated by supplier — no manual calculation required. If a client asks whether a dish contains a particular allergen, you can check in seconds. If ingredient prices rise before the event, you can see immediately which dish costs have changed and by how much. This is the kind of event catering software that replaces hours of manual admin with a few clicks.
Wedding catering demands a level of precision that separates professional caterers from the rest. Multi-course menus, often with two or three options per course, served to a large number of guests — some of whom will have serious allergies. The pre-event allergen questionnaire from the venue coordinator can be a source of real anxiety for a caterer without a robust system in place.
FoodCore's allergen matrix is particularly powerful for wedding caterers. For any event, you can generate a matrix showing every dish you're serving alongside every one of the 14 UK-required allergens — a clear, printable reference for your team on the day. Recipe costing for weddings is also complex: dishes are often costed per head with the total calculated from a final guest number confirmed weeks before the event. FoodCore handles all of this, allowing you to cost a wedding menu per head, scale to the confirmed guest count, and generate your shopping list — all from the same system. No more maintaining a separate spreadsheet for each wedding.
Corporate catering typically involves recurring clients with rotating weekly or monthly menus. The operational challenge is different from event catering: consistency. Your corporate clients expect the same dish to cost the same, contain the same allergens, and taste the same every time. When supplier prices change, you need to know immediately which client contracts are being delivered below margin.
FoodCore keeps your recipe costs current automatically. When a supplier raises the price of a key ingredient, you can see immediately which recipes use that ingredient and by how much each recipe's cost has increased. This is essential for corporate caterers who need to decide whether to absorb a cost increase or reprice with clients. Allergen information is equally important in a corporate setting: employees with serious allergies depend on accurate information about the food provided for working lunches, events, and canteen services. FoodCore's allergen tracking gives you confidence that the information you're providing to corporate clients is accurate and current.
Catering for schools and educational settings carries a heightened duty of care around allergens. Children with serious food allergies depend on accurate allergen information being communicated correctly from the kitchen to the dining room. Nut allergies, in particular, can be life-threatening, and school caterers are under significant pressure to manage these risks properly.
FoodCore supports school caterers with a clear allergen tracking system built directly into the recipe management workflow. Every ingredient is tagged with its allergen profile; every recipe automatically inherits the correct allergen information from its ingredients. When menus change — as they do with seasonal rotations — the allergen data updates automatically. School caterers also benefit from FoodCore's recipe costing tools: managing a contract catering agreement for a school often involves working to a tight per-meal budget, and knowing the cost per portion of every dish on the menu is essential for staying within contract. This is practical, affordable catering management software UK schools and their contracted caterers can rely on.
Care homes and care facilities have some of the most complex dietary management requirements in the food service sector. Residents often have multiple dietary restrictions — allergies, intolerances, medical dietary requirements, texture-modified diets — that need to be tracked and communicated accurately to kitchen staff. Care home catering is heavily scrutinised by regulators, and getting allergen information wrong can have serious consequences for vulnerable residents.
FoodCore gives care home kitchen teams a clear, centralised allergen management system. Every dish on the menu has its allergen profile tracked automatically at ingredient level, and the allergen matrix gives kitchen and care staff a clear reference for each day's menu. For small care home catering teams that are managing complex menus on limited budgets, FoodCore's combination of recipe costing, allergen management, and shopping list generation in one affordable system is a significant operational improvement over the manual methods most currently rely on.
Meal prep businesses and food subscription box operations face a unique set of challenges. Weekly menus change regularly, recipes need to be scaled to batch sizes that fluctuate based on subscriber numbers, and every product that ships needs a compliant food label. If you're producing pre-packed meals for direct sale, Natasha's Law applies to every single product — and labels must be accurate for every recipe change.
FoodCore handles the entire workflow for a meal prep or subscription box business. You build your recipe library once; every recipe has its cost per portion, allergen information, and ingredients list automatically calculated. When your weekly menu changes, you update or add the relevant recipes and FoodCore generates the shopping list for the week based on your subscriber count — scaled automatically to the number of portions required. When you need to print labels for the week's production run, FoodCore generates compliant PPDS labels directly from your recipes, with the correct ingredients list in descending weight order and all allergens highlighted in bold. For growing meal prep businesses, this is the difference between spending Sundays doing admin and spending Sundays preparing food.
Why small food businesses switch from manual methods to FoodCore.
How does FoodCore compare to Kafoodle, Lightspeed, Netsol, and spreadsheets? Here's an honest look at the main options for small UK catering businesses looking for the best catering software UK businesses rely on.
Prices are approximate and subject to change. FoodCore pricing correct as of 2026.
Real feedback from small UK catering businesses using FoodCore as their software for caterers.
"Managing 60+ recipes for weekly events was chaos before FoodCore. Now our allergen information is always accurate and our labels print in seconds."
"The shopping list feature alone saves us hours every week — it groups everything by supplier automatically. No more cross-referencing three different spreadsheets before a big job."
"We switched from a £150/month enterprise system to FoodCore at £55 and honestly can't tell the difference in the features we actually use. It does everything we need."
Natasha's Law applies to pre-packed for direct sale (PPDS) food. If you sell pre-packed products — food packed before the customer orders it — then yes. For food served at events where customers order from a menu, different allergen information requirements apply under the Food Information Regulations 2014. FoodCore's allergen tracking supports both scenarios.
FoodCore tracks allergens at the ingredient level across your entire recipe library. For any event, you can generate an allergen matrix showing which dishes contain which of the 14 major allergens. This gives you accurate, up-to-date allergen information for every dish you serve.
Yes. Scale any recipe to the number of portions required and FoodCore recalculates all ingredient quantities, costs, and the shopping list automatically. Useful for events ranging from 10 to several hundred portions.
Yes. FoodCore is built for small food businesses of all sizes. A one-person catering operation pays the same £55/month as a larger business. There are no minimum requirements or per-user fees.
Yes. FoodCore's order management feature lets you log multiple events, track production requirements for each, and manage your schedule across all active orders.
Small catering businesses in the UK typically use a mix of spreadsheets, Word documents, and general-purpose tools like Google Sheets for recipe costing and allergen management. Some use dedicated catering management software such as FoodCore, Kafoodle, or Lightspeed — though most enterprise platforms are priced beyond what small businesses can justify. FoodCore is built specifically for small catering businesses, with all features included from £55/month.
Catering management software ranges from free (basic spreadsheet templates) to £150–£300/month for enterprise platforms. FoodCore offers two plans: Essentials from £19/month and Core from £55/month — both with every feature included and no per-user fees. There is a 7-day free trial with no card required.
Yes. FoodCore is particularly well suited to event caterers. You can log events, select which dishes you're serving, scale recipes to the required portion count, generate a supplier shopping list, and produce an allergen matrix for the event — all from one system. It's the kind of event catering software that removes hours of manual admin from each job.
Yes. FoodCore tracks all 14 UK-required allergens at the ingredient level. Every recipe automatically shows which allergens it contains. You can generate an allergen matrix for any event, produce compliant PPDS food labels, and ensure your allergen information is always up to date when recipes or ingredients change. It's an essential tool for any UK catering business that needs to meet its legal allergen obligations.
There is no fully featured free catering management software for UK businesses — free tools are typically limited spreadsheet templates that require significant manual work. FoodCore offers a 7-day free trial with no card required, and plans start from £19/month for the Essentials plan. This covers recipe costing, allergen tracking, food labels, and shopping lists — making it the most affordable dedicated catering software for small business in the UK.
Explore the full FoodCore feature set and our guides for UK catering and food businesses.
Every feature included. No card required. Cancel any time. from £19/mo after trial — two plans from £19/month.
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