ReciPal account owners can now lock recipes to prevent their formulas from being edited. Locking recipes helps your team avoid accidental changes and gives a clear visual of which recipe formulas are editable and which aren't.

How it works

Account owners can lock or unlock a recipe from either of these places:

• Recipe dashboard: Select Actions > Lock Recipe.
• Within a recipe: Select More > Lock Recipe.

When a recipe is locked:

• A lock icon appears next to the recipe name.
• All fields on the recipe edit page become read-only.
• The recipe name and tags can't be changed.

What isn't locked

Locking a recipe protects its formula, but not everything connected to it:

• Ingredient nutrition: If someone edits the nutrition of an underlying ingredient, the recipe's label values may change.
• Label details: Users can still edit the ingredient statement, allergens, and label layout.

Other ways to control changes

Recipe locking works alongside several existing ReciPal features:

• Read-only access: Read-only users can't edit recipes, ingredients, or allergens, but they can update the label's style and format. This works well for designers who need to fine-tune a label's appearance. Read-only access applies to a user's entire account access, while locking applies to individual recipes.
• Locked ingredient statements and allergen statements: You can lock these statements on any recipe to stop them from updating when the recipe or its underlying ingredients change. Any user with editing access can turn these locks on or off, while only the account owner can lock or unlock a recipe.
• Recipe history: Every ReciPal account level includes a detailed recipe history, so you can see how a recipe has changed over time and restore an older version if needed.

Useful for solo accounts, too

You can still lock recipes if you're the only user on a Business account. The lock icon makes it easy to see which recipes are final and which are still works in progress. If you need to make a change, you can unlock the recipe at any time.

What's next

We added this feature in response to your requests for a way to prevent recipe editing on finalized products. But there's more we could add to it. Would it help to lock everything? Do you want an option where the labels stay the same even if the underlying ingredient nutrition changes? Do you want to lock the label layout too? We'd love to hear what you think! If you plan to lock your recipes or have ideas for making this feature better, drop us a line at info@recipal.com.