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Ingredient composition

For packaged products that contain more than one component (a chocolate bar made of cocoa mass, sugar and milk solids, a marinade with garlic, soy and vinegar, a biscuit with a vanilla cream filling), CostingBrik lets you record the full composition of the supplier's product. This is the list you would read off the back of the pack.

Composition is recorded per supplier, the same way allergens are. Two suppliers of the same ingredient can package very different things, so each supplier on an ingredient carries its own composition tree.

Where you'll find it​

Open any ingredient (CostingBrik > Ingredients > pick one). Below the ingredient information panel, alongside the Allergens card, you'll see a Composition card. It shows:

  • Which preferred supplier the composition is inherited from.
  • The full sub-ingredient tree, indented to show nesting (sub-ingredients of sub-ingredients).
  • A green tick for components that have been reviewed and verified, a grey circle for components still awaiting review.
  • A "verified count" pill, e.g. 3 of 5 verified, so you can see at a glance how much of the tree has been confirmed.
  • An Edit composition on {supplier name} button to make changes.

Each row also has a small pencil icon for direct edits, which jumps you straight to that component in the editor.

When to record composition​

You don't need composition for every ingredient. Single-component ingredients (whole milk, plain flour, caster sugar) don't have anything to break down. Composition matters when:

  • The product has a multi-ingredient label, e.g. sauces, dressings, biscuits, ready-meals, flavoured milks, chocolate.
  • An ingredient might "hide" an allergen inside one of its components, e.g. a biscuit base for a cheesecake might contain wheat.
  • You want full traceability for due-diligence reasons, e.g. a customer query about origin or specific additives.

If in doubt, record it. The composition feeds straight into the recipe allergen roll-up, so accuracy here pays off automatically downstream.

Adding composition​

From the ingredient page, click Edit composition on {supplier name} on the Composition card. The Label Data modal opens, scoped to that supplier, with the composition tree editor underneath the allergen picker.

Inside the editor you can:

  • Add a top-level component with the + Add component button.
  • Nest sub-components under any row with its inline + action, building a tree as deep as the label requires.
  • Reorder rows by drag-and-drop, or by keyboard (focus a row, press Space to pick up, arrow keys to move, Space to drop).
  • Verify a component once you have reviewed it - this is what lights up the green tick on the read-only card.
  • Delete a component with the trash icon.

Each component can carry its own allergens (e.g. the "biscuit base" sub-component contains gluten). Allergens flagged on components roll up automatically to the supplier-level declaration.

tip

Composition saves component-by-component, not behind a single Save button. Each add, edit, or verify persists immediately, so you can leave the modal at any point without losing work.

AI-assisted extraction​

Typing a long ingredients list in by hand is the slowest way to do this. Brikly offers two AI shortcuts inside the editor:

  • Extract from label - upload a photo of the ingredients panel on the pack and the AI reads the list, builds the tree, and flags allergens automatically.
  • Web lookup - if the brand and product name are known, the AI can search the manufacturer's spec sheet and pre-fill the tree.

AI-generated rows arrive marked as unverified, with the original source noted. Your job is to review them, fix anything the AI got wrong, and click verify. The verified count on the read-only card reflects this human sign-off, which is what you'd want to point at if a customer ever queries an allergen claim.

caution

AI extraction is a starting point, not a verified declaration. Always review extracted components against the actual label before relying on the data for allergen claims.

Multi-supplier composition​

If an ingredient has more than one active supplier, the Composition card on the detail page shows the preferred supplier's tree (matching the model used for allergens). To edit a non-preferred supplier's composition, open the Label Data modal and use the Supplier dropdown at the top to switch.

Switching suppliers in the dropdown swaps the allergen picker and composition tree together. If you've made unsaved allergen changes, Brikly prompts before discarding them.

Inactive (archived) suppliers are still editable from the dropdown, under an "Inactive suppliers" group, so historical compositions can be corrected without un-archiving.

How composition feeds the rest of the platform​

Composition is wired into the same allergen roll-up that powers Brikly's allergen tooling end to end:

  • Allergens flagged on components contribute to the supplier's allergen declaration.
  • The preferred supplier's roll-up flows into every recipe that uses this ingredient.
  • SafetyBrik's allergen matrix surfaces the contributing component for each allergen, so staff can see exactly which sub-ingredient introduced (for example) the wheat warning.

From the SafetyBrik allergen matrix, clicking the source for any allergen deep-links straight back to the right component on the right supplier - the editor opens with that row scrolled into view and briefly highlighted.

info

This is the round-trip we designed for: spot a gap in the matrix in SafetyBrik, jump straight to the component that owns it in CostingBrik, fix it, and watch the matrix update on next refresh. No hunting through ingredient lists.

Empty composition​

If an ingredient has a preferred supplier but no composition recorded yet, the Composition card prompts you to add components, with a single primary button. The ingredient is still usable in recipes - it just won't contribute any sub-ingredient detail to allergen sources or downstream surfaces until you fill it in.