Questions and answers

Anyone who writes a menu and buys from suppliers: pubs, cafés, restaurants, caterers and food vans. If you want to know what a dish costs to make and what to charge for it, Mizen is for you.

No. Mizen runs in your web browser on a phone, tablet or computer. Log in on any of them and your recipes are there.

On a phone or tablet you can add it to your Home Screen so it opens like an app: in Safari on an iPhone or iPad, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen; in Chrome on Android, tap the ⋮ menu, then Add to home screen.

Pick one dish. Add its ingredients at the prices you pay, or scan a supplier invoice, then put the recipe together and add it as a menu item with the gross profit you want. You’ll see what it costs and what to charge. The how it works page walks through an example.

Enter ingredient prices without VAT. Mizen suggests a selling price before VAT for the gross profit you want, and shows the menu price with 20% VAT added.

Grams, kilos, ounces and pounds; millilitres, litres, teaspoons, tablespoons and cups; and items like a piece or a bunch. Mizen converts between weights, and between volumes, so you can buy by the kilo and use by the gram.

Something you make in bulk and use in other dishes, like a gravy, a stock or a pastry. Give it a batch size, such as 1 litre, and use it in other recipes by amount (80 ml) or by portion. Its cost and allergens carry through to every dish that uses it.

Update the ingredient, by hand or by scanning the invoice, and every batch recipe, recipe and menu item that uses it is re-costed straight away.

Take a photo of each page of a supplier invoice, or upload the PDF. Mizen uses AI to read the lines, match them to your ingredients and work out the price per unit. You check each line and choose what to do with it before anything changes.

Photos (JPG, PNG or WebP) and PDFs, up to 10 MB each. You can scan up to 150 invoices a month.

It can misread a line, which is why Mizen shows you every line, and what it plans to do with it, before anything changes. Nothing is updated until you apply it.

You record the 14 allergens on each ingredient. Mizen adds them up through every batch recipe, recipe and menu item that uses it, so each dish shows everything in it.

Mizen works from the details you enter, so its allergen information can only be correct if those are correct. You’re still responsible for the allergen information you give customers, so always double-check it against your recipes and product labels, especially when you change product or supplier.

Yes. The Allergen Report prints as an A4 chart of every dish against the 14 allergens, with space to note when it was reviewed and by whom. You can also save it as a PDF, or export a CSV.

No. Mizen knows what’s in each ingredient, so the chart shows the allergens your dishes contain. It doesn’t record cross-contamination.

Every new account gets 7 days free. You enter your card when you sign up, and you’re first charged on day 8 unless you cancel before then. While you’re on the trial, Mizen shows how many days are left.

£14.99 a month, or £150 a year. Both include everything. See pricing.

Yes, any time. In Mizen, go to Account & Billing and choose Manage Billing.

Your account, recipes and prices are stored in a database in London, and only you can see them. Card payments are handled by Stripe, so Mizen never sees your full card number. The privacy policy has the details.