Kitchen labels

Kitchen labels are operational labels for your own kitchen: prepared, opened, and defrosted day dots plus discard-by labels, carrying the product name, dates, storage instructions, staff initials, the allergen summary, and an optional delivery-lot reference. Kitchen labels are part of ProCafe Pro.

1. Open Kitchen labels → Library and add each product.
2. Set the shelf life for each label type you use — prepared, opened, defrosted — in hours or days. ProCafe never invents an expiration: a label type without a shelf life you set simply cannot be printed.
3. Add the allergens (and may-contain) so the label carries an accurate summary.

Staff pick the product and label type; the preview shows exactly what the label will read before anything is printed. Labels download as PDFs sized for compatible A4 label sheets (including the 21-up L7160 layout) and common thermal label sizes — no proprietary hardware is required.

• On A4 sheets, choose a start position to use up a partly-used sheet — printing continues from that slot.
• Staff initials are taken from the signed-in user and can be edited at print time.
• If a product has no allergens recorded, the label prints a “see allergen matrix” line instead of implying it is allergen-free.

A label can reference a delivery lot from your traceability records. If the lot’s use-by date is earlier than the computed discard date, the label is shortened to the lot’s date automatically — the preview flags this as it happens, so it is never a surprise at the printer.

• Every print is kept as a frozen, unchangeable record — who printed it, when, and exactly what it said.
• Reprints reproduce the original label exactly from that record; only output settings like the sheet format or start position can change.
• An EXPIRED label is never reprinted — if the discard moment has passed, the reprint is refused and you print a fresh label instead.
• “Doesn’t fit this label size” means the text genuinely cannot fit the chosen format at a readable size — ProCafe refuses to shrink or truncate a food-safety label. Shorten the product name or storage instructions, or pick a larger format.

• Allergen matrix guide
• Suppliers & deliveries guide
• Kitchen labels — feature overview