Six deli containers in the walk-in, all the same pale yellow. One is aioli, one is the polenta for Tuesday, and one’s been there since last Friday. They all say “sauce” in marker, if they say anything. Tomorrow someone who didn’t make them has to pick one up and put it on food for a room full of people.

A label is the note you leave the next cook, from the person who made it.

What goes on a kitchen label

  1. What it is. “Wild Mushroom Polenta”, not “sauce”.
  2. How much and how it’s held. “29 portions · Refrigerated”.
  3. When it was made, or frozen, thawed or opened.
  4. When it has to go. A use-by date, or “Keep frozen”.
  5. What it contains. The allergens, in capitals, where nobody can miss them.
  6. What it’s for, and who made it, so there’s someone to ask.

The allergen line helps the crew catch a dangerous mistake. Check it against the recipe and each ingredient’s source instead of relying on memory. Printing one in CostCook, with the Wild Mushroom Polenta for a 29-guest fundraiser on Tuesday:

Step 1: Open the order’s Pack page

Open the order and tap Pack. Before you print anything, look at the top of the page.

The Pack page for the Ishikawa fundraiser, #765, Tue Oct 13, 29 guests, Confirmed. A warning reads: Labels will say “allergens not reviewed” on 5 dishes. 16 ingredients across the menu haven’t been checked. Review them before printing labels for guests. Below it, a button: Review 16 ingredients.
If an ingredient's allergens were never answered, the label says so instead of printing a blank.

CostCook won’t print a blank allergen line over an ingredient nobody checked. If you print now, those labels say how many ingredients weren’t reviewed. Better to answer them first.

Step 2: Answer each ingredient from its package

Tap Review allergens under the dish, or Review 16 ingredients for the whole menu, to see which ingredients are still open. Then answer each one, on the dish’s review or on the ingredient’s own Allergens page. Take the package or the spec sheet in your hand and go down the nine rows: Contains, May contain, Cross-contact, Free from, or Not checked if you haven’t seen it.

The allergens page for Parmesan, block: “Go down the list with the package label or spec sheet in hand. Leave a row on Not checked if you haven’t seen it.” Buttons for Draft with Sage and Draft all. Wheat is set to Free from and Milk to Contains, each marked Changed, with the source “Package label, read Oct 10”.
Parmesan: milk is Contains, wheat is Free from, from the package.

Draft with Sage can suggest answers from the ingredient’s name, but free from is your call, made with the package in front of you.

When you save, CostCook asks where you checked. Write it down for whoever checks next month.

A save bar: “9 changes · where did you check it?”, with the note “Package label, read Oct 10”. Below: “Saved with the rows you changed. After saving, all 9 are answered, so recipes treat Parmesan, block as checked.” Buttons: Discard and Save 9 changes.
Saving needs a note saying where the answer came from.

The polenta has four ingredients: polenta, cremini mushrooms, Parmesan and butter. Two of them contain milk.

Step 3: Tap Label on the dish

Back on Pack, the dish now shows what it contains instead of a warning.

The Wild Mushroom Polenta row on the Pack page: a red badge “Contains: Milk”, 29 portions, and a Label button.
Reviewed: the dish shows Contains: Milk, read from its four ingredients.

Tap Label.

Step 4: Pick how it’s stored, then the shelf life

The first question is Storage condition, and there’s no default, because the app can’t know whether this pan goes in the walk-in or the freezer. Pick Refrigerated, Frozen, Thawed or Opened.

The label dialog. Storage condition: “The one thing the app can’t know. No default: this is a real choice.” Refrigerated is selected (Into the walk-in), with Frozen, Thawed and Opened beside it. Shelf life: “No refrigerated shelf life has been set.” A chip offers “FDA Food Code: 7 days Use”, then Add shelf life, Print made-date only, and “Add a shelf life, or choose to print the made date only.”
No shelf life on this recipe yet, so CostCook offers the Food Code's 7 days as a starting point.

If the recipe has no shelf life, you choose: tap FDA Food Code: 7 days and Use, Add shelf life with your kitchen’s own rule, or Print made-date only. It never guesses a use-by date for you.

The FDA Food Code gives ready-to-eat food that needs to stay cold, held at 41°F or below, up to 7 days, counting the day it was made as day 1. Your state or county may set its own rule, so check with them.

Frozen prints KEEP FROZEN instead of a date. A thawed label says when it thawed, and you decide the rest, because only you know how long it sat before it went in the freezer.

Step 5: Read the sticker before you print

The dialog shows exactly what will print.

The sticker preview: “Exactly what will print. 2 stickers, numbered.” Wild Mushroom Polenta, 29 portions batch total, Refrigerated. USE BY OCT 16, 2026. Made Oct 10, 2026. CONTAINS: MILK. Ishikawa fundraiser, Oct 13, 2026. Harbor & Hearth Catering. M. Vega, 1 of 2. Below: “Contains and May contain are derived from this recipe’s allergen data.”
Made Oct 10, use by Oct 16: seven days, counting the day it was made.

Check the date the way the Food Code counts it:

Made: Saturday, October 10
Shelf life: 7 days, made day = day 1
Use by = Oct 10 + 7 − 1 days
       = Friday, October 16

The common mistake is counting from the day after. That’s an eighth day nobody planned for.

The made date on the label is the day you print it. Print labels the day you make the food; if you’re labelling yesterday’s batch, set the use-by date yourself with Change shelf life.

Step 6: Say how many containers, and print

One label per container, not per portion. The polenta goes out in two hotel pans, so that’s two labels, numbered 1 of 2 and 2 of 2.

How many physical containers? “Print one label per container. The 29 portions is the batch total, not what is in each one.” The stepper reads 2, “2 containers · 2 labels”. Label stock: 30-up sheet, 66 × 25.4 mm, 30 to a sheet, with Change stock. A button: Print 2 labels.
Two pans, two labels, on the label stock you've set up.

Print 2 labels opens your browser’s print dialog. CostCook prints onto a 30-up letter sheet (Avery-compatible), a 58 mm or 62 mm continuous roll, or a 2 × 1 in die-cut roll; Change stock picks which.

Food you hand to a guest is a different label

Everything above is the kitchen label, for your crew. If you sell packaged food, federal and state rules ask for more. The major allergens have to be declared, and on top of that come an ingredient list in order of weight, a Nutrition Facts panel, the net amount, your name and address. Which of these apply to you depends on what you sell and where, so ask your health department.

CostCook’s recipe Nutrition label gives you a calculated Nutrition Facts panel, the ingredient list and the allergens. It says what it is: a calculated estimate, ingredients in recipe order, not by weight, and it isn’t a claim of retail-label compliance.

In the walk-in

  • Every container says what it is, not “sauce”.
  • The allergens were answered from the package, and anything not reviewed says so.
  • The use-by date counts the day it was made as day 1.
  • One label per container, numbered.

Tomorrow the cook reaches for the pan that says Wild Mushroom Polenta, USE BY OCT 16, CONTAINS: MILK, and doesn’t have to ask anybody.