I've spoken in the past a number of times about this program, and use it myself as a regular part of my daily business. In fact it's a mandatory part of m online culinary & pastry arts certificate program. Today I would like to the pros and cons of mastercook vs the many other similar software tools available.
Mastercook celebrates 30 years of being an industry leader in home & business cookbook software. With the recent release of mastercook 22, I have seen this program come a long way. Without further ado, here is my list of pros and cons.
PROS
Helpful menu planning capabilities
This software can help you in planning meals. You can plan your breakfast, lunch and dinner for a day, the week or even an entire month.
Makes shopping for groceries easier
When you already made your meal plan, it can make a shopping list and group the food per area in the grocery. This makes it easier for you to shop and saves you time. It can also estimate your food bill, though you have to input the price when you use it the first time.
Mastercook contains more than 8,000 recipes in its database.
Helpful food tracking capability
This can track what's still available in your pantry. When you don't want to go out and shop, it will give you a number of recipe suggestions with the ingredients you have in your house.
Has three platforms with every full version: web, android app and PC, all of which can be synced for content.
Cost Analysis: Make a daily or weekly food budget per serving, recipe, or menu. Scale Recipes: Change servings and adjust recipe times and ingredients instantly.
Plan Big: Avoid the stress of cooking for a large gathering with tools designed for the task.
Pantry List & Substitutions Tools: Get recipe suggestions based on what you have on hand.
Wine List: Track your collection, preferences, and favorite pairings for your next event.
Nutrition Analysis: Check calories, minerals, fat, and vitamins for any recipe or per serving, menu, or meal.
There's more, but I really should get on with the cons. Here is a short video introduction to mastercook, then the bad news!
SO, WHATS WRONG WITH MASTERCOOK?
Recipe costing utility should be more robust, especially as it is being promoted as a professional program now vs a home cookbook program. Things I would love to see is an inventory module linked to costing, recipes & meal plans. Another good feature would be the ability to import data/pricing from major foodservice vendors. This would drastically reduce the boredom and time consuming work of data input. Here are a few links to programs that have these features, keeping in mind that the purchase price of similar programs are significantly more;
I believe that a multilingual or separate language versions of the program would be helpful.
Another module that could be beneficial to some operators is a menu engineering optionton to track profitability and popularity.
Purchasing & Ordering
In a successful foodservice operation, bringing in inventory is a constant task.
Production Management Module - Keep your schedules tight and precise.
Streamline processes and increase efficiencies. Reduce your labor costs. Create integrated prep sheets based on par levels you define, recipes, and sales data. Seamlessly update inventory.
I could go on, but let's talk about price: mastercook at regular price comes in at about $200US, most of the above mentioned products start at around $500US and can be as much as $2500US depending on features. At the end of the day, cash is king, and mastercook is doing a pretty good job at delivering value for the dollar!
Mastercook has some really great promotions right now, why not head over and check out!
Cheers, and Happy Cooking!