Creating a product

A product is the thing you make and sell ("Habanero Hot Honey"), not a single batch of it. Almost everything else in Crown hangs off a product: your recipes are versions of a product, the batches you run produce it, and the SKUs you define are the formats you ship it in. Create the product first, then build its recipe.

Creating a product

1. Open Products and create new

   Open Products from the main menu and select Add product. Crown opens a New product page.

2. Enter a name

   Fill in Product name the way you'd refer to it on a label or order, e.g. "Habanero Hot Honey." This is the only required field; you can fill in everything else now or come back to it later.

3. Set the measurement type

   Choose Mass, Volume, or Count. This sets the unit family for every recipe, batch, and yield figure on the product; read the next section before you pick.

4. Save

   Select Save, at the top of the page or at the foot of it. Crown creates the product and takes you back to the products list.

5. Reopen it to add SKUs and allergens

   Select your new product in the list, then Open product. The SKU, pricing, and allergen sections are all editable now that the product exists.

Measurement type sets the unit family

Mass, Volume, or Count determines which units are available everywhere the product is used: g / kg / lb / oz for mass, mL / L / fl oz / gal for volume, ea for count. Every recipe version, batch size, and yield figure inherits this family.

Optional details

A product carries more than a name. All of the following are optional and editable later:

• Product code: a short code (e.g. "HH") used in lot codes and as an internal reference.
• Status: Active, Development, or Discontinued. Only Active products appear when starting a batch. Recipes can be built against any status; archiving the product is what removes it from the recipe picker.
• Standard batch size, shelf life, intended use, and food-safety attributes (target pH, water activity, preservation methods): these feed your production records and compliance documents. Fill in what's relevant to your product and skip what isn't.
• Lot code: by default the product uses your facility's lot code format. You can override it for this product if a particular line needs its own format, and you can set the override before the first save.

Setting defaults for every new product

If most of your products share the same answers, set them once instead of retyping them. In the Admin area, the Product Defaults tab holds four values that pre-fill on every new product:

• Default intended consumer — who the product is for. This one carries weight: intended consumer feeds your preventive control plan, and a product aimed at a vulnerable group is assessed differently.
• Default storage conditions
• Default distribution channels
• Default distribution markets

They're defaults, not locks — any product can override them. Setting them is worth a minute if you're about to create more than a handful of products.

After saving: SKUs and allergens

Two sections only appear once the product exists:

SKUs: the formats you sell the product in (e.g. a 200 mL bottle, or a case of six). Each SKU has a unit size and optional codes and pricing. SKUs are what your packaging step counts finished goods into, so define a SKU before you record packaging output for a batch.

Allergen statement: the product's final allergen declaration. Crown builds it from the allergen rollup of the product's recipe, which you can then escalate where needed (for example, to flag shared-equipment cross-contact). It needs a recipe to roll up from; allergens themselves are set on each ingredient, in Setting up your ingredients.

What's next

With a product created, you're ready to build its recipe. See Your first recipe.