Items & Categories

Understanding Master Categories

Items are organised into five master categories: Menu Items for food, Equipment for plates, cutlery, and serving equipment, Beverages for drinks and beverage packages, Miscellaneous for other items, and Venue Items (available if the venue module is enabled).

Each master category contains custom categories and items. For example, within Menu Items, you might create categories like Baking, Sandwiches, Savoury, Entrees, Mains, and Desserts.

Managing Categories

Categories organise items and control how they appear in quotes, online forms, and menus. Note that when using Menu Headers (which only apply to the Menu Items master category), items are grouped by the menu header rather than by category. For more details, see our article Categories vs Menu Headers. To manage categories, navigate to the relevant master category (such as Menu Items), then click Manage to open the Menu Organisation page. Click + Add Category to create one, and use Edit or drag-and-drop to rename and reorder them.

The order of your categories determines how they appear in quotes. For example, you might place breakfast items at the top, entrees, mains, and sides in the middle, and desserts at the bottom.

For guidance on how to name and structure your categories, see our article How to Name Your Menu Categories.

Category Display Names

Each category has a Name and an optional Display Name. The name appears internally and on quotes. The display name appears on online order forms and menus.

For example, a category named "Buffet Mains" internally can have a display name of "Mains" for online pages.

Default Commentary

Each category has a default commentary field — a block of text that appears under the category's heading, above its items, on your quotes. It seeds every new quote that uses the category and can be tailored per quote. This is customer-facing and shows on quotes only — it never appears on dockets, reports or menus. For full details, see our Menu & Category Commentary help page.

Working with Items

Items are the individual products or services within each category. On the items list, click + New Menu Item to create one, or Edit on any row to change an existing item. A slide-over panel displays the item details.

Items can be reordered by dragging and dropping. The order determines how items appear in quotes.

When you have many items across multiple categories, use the search button to quickly find items across all categories without clicking through multiple categories.

Configuring Item Details

When creating or editing an item, you have access to configuration options that control how the item behaves throughout Puree and where it appears in quotes, online menus, and operational documents.

Item Options

Items can have selectable options — such as portion sizes or dietary variants — with optional surcharges added to the base price. Options appear when adding an item to a quote, flow through to dockets, and are available in your online store. See our Item Options help page for full details.

Active Status and Basic Information

The active/inactive toggle controls whether an item appears when creating quotes. Inactive items remain saved and can be reactivated.

Each item requires a name and must be assigned to a category. Menu items can optionally be assigned to sections and departments. Learn more in our Sections & Departments help page.

Delivery Temperature and Suitability

Items can be marked with delivery temperatures: heated, chilled, or either. This information appears on chef dockets. For more details, see our Hot/Cold Delivery help page.

Items can be marked as unsuitable for delivery. These items will not appear in delivery orders but can be used for staffed events or customer collection orders.

Pricing and Minimum Quantities

Each item has a price field. The minimum quantity setting controls how many units must be ordered. On online order forms, this minimum is enforced and customers cannot order less than the specified amount. In quotes, the system shows a warning if the minimum is not met, but does not prevent you from proceeding.

Display Options and Menu Names

Items can have a menu display name that differs from their internal name. Leave this blank to use the standard name.

You can control where items appear: in quotes, on online menus, and in operational documents (chef dockets, driver dockets, event briefs).

Menu Bundles

A bundle is a menu item made of other catalogue items — a platter, a boxed lunch, a hamper. The customer sees one priced line with the contents listed underneath. The kitchen sees the dishes. It is not a Packages: a package is priced per guest and shapes an event. A bundle is something you order twelve of.

Tick This item is a bundle directly under the item name, then choose what to call each one — bundle, platter, lunch box, hamper, and so on. That word is what the chef docket uses: part of 2 x Savoury Filled Croissants platters. The Options & Includes section becomes Contents headed with that word. Search for each catalogue item, set how many go into one of the parent with the plus and minus buttons (whole numbers), and click Add item for the next one. Contents are one level deep: you cannot put a bundle inside a bundle, and an item that already sits inside another bundle cannot itself be ticked as a bundle.

If a content item has a delivery temperature or its own choices (bread type, gluten free), set those defaults on the bundle row. The quote builder opens with them already selected, and you can change them for that line. Leave them blank and the content item's own defaults are used. Includes on that content travel with it onto the bundle — the words and any surcharge, always on. Dietary codes and allergens belong to the contents, not the bundle, so they print on each sub-line rather than on the priced parent.

Ticking the box changes a few things on the item, all of them deliberate. The item-level Dietary codes and Allergens pickers disappear and anything already tagged there is cleared, because a bundle's codes come from its contents. Any external supplier is cleared too: a bundle is assembled from your own catalogue rather than bought in. The Options & Includes section becomes the contents list, so a bundle does not offer choices of its own — put those on the contents, where the kitchen will see them. Untick the box later and the links drop away but the wording survives: the contents stay behind as plain Includes text, so nothing vanishes off existing quotes.

On the quote, the driver docket, packaging stickers and the online menu the bundle is one line, description under the name (line breaks kept), then quantified contents (2x Egg Salad Sandwich). Stickers follow that same shape — the box name, then the items listed under it — and count one sticker per box, not one per sandwich. Untick Show quantity in customer quote and the customer quote hides those prefixes as well as the parent count; dockets, stickers and your own order screen keep them. On the online order form, a content item's own choices (bread type, gluten free) appear under that content so the customer can pick them. On the chef docket each content is its own dish, tagged part of 2 x Lunch Box bundles. Switching the bundle on unticks Include in chef & driver docket once, because the kitchen should prep the contents rather than a line called the platter. Recipes and food cost live on those contents, not on the bundle.

Contents are worked out from the item, not typed onto a quote. You cannot change a content's quantity for one order — change it on the bundle and it applies from then on. Deleting the bundle line takes its contents with it, and re-saving an order rebuilds them in place, so a chef ticking one off in the kitchen keeps that when you edit the quote. Online, availability follows the bundle itself, so set the available dates, days and cutoff on the bundle rather than relying on its contents.

Bundles show a badge on the items list, and there is a Bundles filter next to the category and dietary pills. A content item cannot be deactivated while a live bundle still includes it. Options, Includes, bundles and packages side by side are in our article Options, Includes, Bundles and Packages: Which One Do You Mean?. Options and Includes setup is on our Item Options help page.

Dietary Codes and Photos

Tick the relevant dietary codes for each item (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, etc.). These codes are displayed throughout the system. For more information, see our article Dietary Codes Feature.

You can add photos to items by clicking the upload area or dragging and dropping an image. Tick the box if you want the photo to appear in quotes. For more information, see our article Photos Feature.

Sections and Departments for Workflow Management

Sections and departments are the same thing and only apply to menu items. They provide organisational structure for kitchen operations and workflow management. For more information, see our article Sections, Departments & Kitchen Reports.

Examples include: pastry (sweets, baking, desserts), hot kitchen (items requiring cooking), and cold prep (salads, cold items). Logistics and kitchen reports can be filtered by section.

Sections and departments can be managed from the main menu with drag-and-drop reordering.

Bulk Operations and Efficiency Tools

To make changes to multiple items at once, use the "Bulk Edit Items" button at the bottom of the items list. This allows you to update multiple items simultaneously rather than editing them individually.

You can download a CSV file of your items for record-keeping or analysis.

Understanding the Differences Between Master Categories

Sections and departments only apply to menu items. Equipment, beverage, and miscellaneous items cannot be assigned to sections or departments.

Venue items are only available if the venue module is enabled. The process for managing items is similar across all master categories.