use-it-up-menu

---
name: use-it-up-menu
description: Turns today's surplus into one dish for tomorrow, sorted by date label so nothing unlawful reaches a plate, with the cooking and holding temperatures set, the allergen record written before the board is, and a redistribution route for what the dish cannot use. Use at the end of service when the walk-in is fuller than the order sheet, before a bank holiday, or whenever a delivery landed and the bookings did not.
---

# Tomorrow's special out of today's surplus, with the paperwork done first

You give this a list of what is sitting in the fridge tonight, with the date label read off each item rather than remembered, plus the dishes you already sell and the allergens you already declare. You get back a dated file: every item sorted into what may be cooked, what may be frozen, what may be sold as it is and what must be thrown away, one proposed dish built from the biggest surplus line with its cooking and holding temperatures set, the allergen record for that dish written out ready to approve, honest board copy, and a redistribution route for what the dish cannot absorb. It writes the dish. It does not put it on sale. Only the chef does that, and only after the allergen record is signed off.

## What it does

1. **Walk the fridge with a pen and read every label, because the item you remember is not the item that is there.** One line per item: what it is, how much, where it came from, the date printed on it, and which of the two kinds of label that is. Do not accept "there's some chicken". Weigh or count, and take the date as printed. This is the only step that cannot be done from a desk, and everything downstream is wrong if it is done from memory. An item that has been decanted and lost its label is treated as having no date, which is a decision with consequences in step 4 rather than a gap to be filled in.

2. **Sort by label type first, because a use-by date and a best before date are different objects in law.** GOV.UK states the distinction plainly: "Use-by dates relate to the safety of food, whereas best before dates relate to quality", and use-by dates "must be shown on foods that go off quickly, such as meat products and ready-to-eat salads". Best before is about deterioration: "After the best before date, the food is usually safe to eat but may not be of the same quality", and the check is sensory, "you can use sight, taste or smell to decide". The two lists must never be merged into one "nearly out of date" list, which is how a use-by item ends up being judged by smell.

3. **Apply the two clocks that lawfully extend a use-by item, and write the new date on the item.** GOV.UK sets both: "You can eat food after the use-by date if it was cooked or frozen on or before the use-by date. If you cook food before the use-by date, you should then cool it and keep it in the fridge. You must then eat it within 48 hours or freeze it to eat at a later date." And after freezing, "Once the food has been defrosted, you need to use it within 24 hours", with the freezer at -18°C and the item labelled "so you know what it is and when it was frozen". Cooking tonight buys 48 hours; freezing buys until you defrost it, then 24. Both require the action before the printed date, not on the morning after.

4. **Cull what must be waste before designing anything, and say so out loud.** GOV.UK's food and drink waste hierarchy is unambiguous: "You must not use, sell or donate food that's past its 'use-by' date. You must treat these items as waste." That covers the special, the staff meal and the food bank equally. Anything with no readable date, anything out of chill for over four hours, and anything whose history cannot be established joins the same list. Weigh it, because that number makes the case for ordering differently, and it belongs in the food waste count rather than in the menu.

5. **Build one dish, from the biggest surviving line, and let the rest wait.** One dish, not a section. Three specials become three half-used containers by Thursday and three allergen records; one can be prepped in a block and sold out. Pick the line with the most weight or the highest invoice value at risk and build around it. WRAP's Guardians of Grub defines the category this usually comes from as spoilage, "Food that is damaged or out of date such as spoilt vegetables", and the honest reading of a large spoilage line is an ordering problem that a special treats rather than cures.

6. **Set the cooking, holding and service temperatures before the description is written.** GOV.UK's guidance for businesses gives the numbers: cook "until it has reached a core temperature of 70°C for 2 minutes" or an equivalent such as "75°C for 30 seconds"; hot food "must be kept at or above 63°C if you're not serving it straight away", and may be kept below that "for up to 2 hours. After that, cool it as quickly as possible to 8°C or below, or throw it away"; and chilled food "must be kept at 8°C or below", which "is a legal requirement in England, Wales and Northern Ireland". The hardest limit is the reheat: "You can only reheat food once." A special made from already-cooked surplus spends its one reheat when it is cooked into the dish, so it cannot then be held cold and reheated to order.

7. **Write the allergen record for the new dish before anything reaches a board.** FSA guidance states that for non-prepacked food "you must supply allergen information for every item that contains any of the 14 allergens", including "meals served in a restaurant, and food from a takeaway", and that "You need to make sure that you know what is in the food you provide. You can do this by recording allergen ingredient information in a written format." The 14 are celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites above ten parts per million, and tree nuts. A surplus dish is the highest risk dish on the menu for one reason: it was not on the allergen matrix this morning. Name who updates the record and when, before service.

8. **Write the board copy as what the dish is, never as what it was, and never as a claim you cannot evidence.** Describe the dish: the ingredient, the method, the price. Do not write "leftovers", "using up" or "yesterday's", and do not swing the other way into "chef's signature" or a sourcing claim the kitchen cannot document. FSA's advice on allergen information is worth applying to the whole description: "written allergen information, supported by a conversation, works best for consumers." The board carries the dish and the allergens, and the server carries the rest.

9. **Route what the dish cannot use, and date the file.** For surplus that is still fit but will not be sold, GOV.UK lists redistribution to "charities", "schools", "commercial redistributors" and "food banks", with one rule above all others: "You must only donate food that's safe and fit for human consumption. Never donate food that's past its 'use-by' date." For the rest, note the two prohibitions that catch kitchens out: "You must not feed catering waste and kitchen scraps to farmed animals", and fruit and vegetable material may go to animals only if it "Originated outside the kitchen" and "Has never entered the kitchen". Then date the file and record what actually sold, because a special that did not sell is surplus twice.

## Then it checks

1. Every item on the list carries a quantity and a date label read off the item, and every undated or decanted item is on the waste list rather than in the dish.
2. Use-by items and best before items are on separate lists, and no use-by item has been judged by sight, taste or smell.
3. Every item whose life was extended by cooking or freezing shows the action, the date it was done, the printed date it was done before, and the new deadline of 48 hours or 24 hours as applicable.
4. Nothing past its use-by date appears in the dish, in a staff meal or on the redistribution list, and everything excluded is weighed and recorded.
5. The dish carries a core cooking temperature and time, a hold temperature, a service method, and a statement of how many times the food will have been reheated, with that number never above one.
6. A written allergen record for the dish names every one of the 14 allergens present or states that none is, names who updates the venue's record and when, and the board copy describes the dish without describing its provenance and without a claim the kitchen cannot evidence.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is. Board copy and a social post about the special go out in the venue's name, and the allergen record is signed by the person who wrote it.
- Refuse to put any item past its use-by date into a dish, a staff meal, a donation or a stock, whatever its condition and whoever asks. GOV.UK states that these must be treated as waste, and a kitchen that makes one exception has no rule.
- Never judge a use-by item by smell, appearance or taste. That test belongs to best before items only, and moving it across is the single most common way this job goes wrong.
- Never propose a dish that requires reheating cooked food more than once, that holds hot food below 63 degrees for more than two hours, or that returns chilled food to the fridge after four hours out.
- Never write a dish onto a board, a menu, a specials app or a social account from this file. It proposes a dish and writes the copy; a named person approves the allergen record and puts it on sale.
- Never describe a special as made from leftovers or surplus in customer-facing copy, and never attach a sourcing, provenance or quality claim the kitchen cannot evidence with a document. A special is a dish, described as one.
- Never treat a large surplus as a creative opportunity without also recording it as an ordering problem. The dish is tonight's answer; the order sheet is the cure.
- This output is a working document prepared for the head chef and owner to check against their own food safety management system, their allergen records and their own judgement of the food in front of them. It applies published guidance to a list supplied by the kitchen. It is not food safety advice, it is not a hazard analysis and it does not certify that any item is safe to serve.

## Built from
- GOV.UK, "Understanding food labelling: Best before and use-by dates", https://www.gov.uk/understanding-food-labelling/best-before-and-use-by-dates, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: the distinction between the two label types in step 2, the sensory test that belongs only to best before, and the 48 hour after cooking and 24 hour after defrosting clocks plus the -18°C freezer and labelling instruction in step 3.
- GOV.UK, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, "Food and drink waste hierarchy: deal with surplus and waste", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-and-drink-waste-hierarchy-deal-with-surplus-and-waste/food-and-drink-waste-hierarchy-deal-with-surplus-and-waste, updated 1 January 2024, read 16 September 2026: the prohibition on using, selling or donating food past its use-by date in step 4, the list of redistribution routes and the donation rule in step 9, and the animal feed prohibitions on catering waste and on anything that has entered the kitchen, also in step 9.
- GOV.UK, "Food hygiene for businesses: Cooking food safely", https://www.gov.uk/food-hygiene-businesses/cooking, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: the 70°C for 2 minutes core temperature and its equivalents, the 63°C hot holding rule with its two hour limit, and the single reheat rule, all in step 6.
- GOV.UK, "Food hygiene for businesses: Chilling and freezing", https://www.gov.uk/food-hygiene-businesses/chilling-and-freezing, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: the 8°C legal requirement and the four hour out of chill limit used in step 6 and in check 1.
- Food Standards Agency, "Allergen guidance for food businesses", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/allergen-guidance-for-food-businesses/allergen-guidance-for-food-businesses, updated 17 July 2026, read 16 September 2026: the list of the 14 allergens, the duty to supply allergen information for non-prepacked food including restaurant and takeaway meals, the requirement to record allergen ingredient information in a written format, and the advice that written information supported by a conversation works best, all in steps 7 and 8.
- WRAP, "Frequently Asked Questions for the Hospitality and Food Service sector", Guardians of Grub, https://guardiansofgrub.com/faqs/, no publication date shown on the page, copyright notice reads "WRAP 2024", read 16 September 2026: the definition of spoilage that step 5 uses to read a large surplus line as an ordering signal rather than a menu opportunity.

This is a working document prepared for the head chef and owner to check against their own food safety management system and allergen records before it is relied on. It is not food safety advice and it does not certify that any item is safe to serve.

# use-it-up-menu

## You are given
Tonight's surplus list from one hospitality kitchen, walked and written by a named person. Each line holds: the item in the kitchen's own words, the quantity as a weight or a count, where it came from, the date label exactly as printed, and whether that label is a use-by or a best before, all read off the item rather than remembered. Alongside it: any item recorded as undated or decanted; how long each was last out of chill, where known; the venue's dish list with the written allergen record for each dish; the 14 allergen names and the food safety, labelling and hierarchy wording Claude relied on, each with its source URL and read date; Claude's proposed dish as an ingredient list with quantities, a cooking method with core temperature and time, a holding method with a temperature, a service method, and a reheat count; Claude's draft board copy; and the redistribution routes available with contact names. Where a value is missing it arrives as the word `not supplied`.

## Produce
Write into a `./use-it-up-menu-output/` folder:

1. `surplus.csv` with these columns in this order: `item_ref`, `item_verbatim`, `quantity`, `unit`, `origin`, `label_type`, `date_on_label`, `days_from_today`, `last_out_of_chill_hours`, `undated_or_decanted`, `routing`, `rule_cited`. `item_ref` is S001 upward. `label_type` is exactly one of `use by`, `best before`, `none`. `routing` is exactly one of `cook today`, `freeze today`, `sell as is`, `redistribute`, `waste`, copied from the input and never decided here. Every `waste` row carries a non-empty `rule_cited`.
2. `life-extension.csv` with columns: `item_ref`, `item_verbatim`, `action`, `action_date`, `printed_date_it_was_done_before`, `done_before_printed_date`, `new_deadline`, `new_deadline_basis`, `label_written_on_item`. `action` is `cooked` or `frozen`. `new_deadline_basis` is exactly one of `48 hours after cooking`, `24 hours after defrosting`, `not applicable`. `done_before_printed_date` is `yes`, `no` or `not supplied`, and every `no` or `not supplied` row is listed in `gaps.md` and its `surplus.csv` routing is reported as contradicted.
3. `waste-list.csv` with columns: `item_ref`, `item_verbatim`, `quantity`, `unit`, `reason`, `rule_cited`, `weight_kg`, `invoice_cost_gbp`, `cost_source_reference`. `reason` is exactly one of `past use-by date`, `no readable date`, `decanted with no label`, `out of chill more than four hours`, `history cannot be established`. A `TOTAL` row gives weight and cost.
4. `dish.md` - the proposed dish exactly as supplied: the ingredient list and quantities, every `item_ref` it draws on, the core cooking temperature and time, the hold temperature, the maximum hold duration, the service method, the reheat count, and the surplus weight the dish absorbs against the total available. Nothing here is written, reworded, scaled or substituted by Codex.
5. `allergen-record.csv` with columns: `dish`, `allergen`, `present`, `source_ingredient_item_ref_or_name`, `already_on_venue_matrix`, `record_updated_by`, `record_updated_at`, `updated_before_service`. Fourteen rows, one per allergen, in the order supplied. `present` is `yes`, `no` or `not supplied`, and any `not supplied` is listed at the top of `gaps.md`.
6. `board-copy.md` - the draft customer-facing copy exactly as supplied, followed by a checklist showing whether each of the words `leftover`, `leftovers`, `using up`, `use up`, `yesterday`, `surplus` and `waste` appears, and a list of every claim asserting provenance, sourcing, quality or a superlative, each with a column for the document the kitchen would evidence it with. Codex never rewrites this copy.
7. `redistribution.csv` with columns: `item_ref`, `item_verbatim`, `quantity`, `label_type`, `date_on_label`, `past_use_by`, `eligible_to_donate`, `route`, `contact_name`, `collection_or_delivery`, `arranged`. `eligible_to_donate` is `no` wherever `past_use_by` is `yes`, without exception.
8. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of: any allergen row marked `not supplied`; any item with no readable date; any life extension not done before the printed date; any `use by` item past its date routed to `cook today` or `sell as is`; any dish with a reheat count above one, or with no core temperature, hold temperature or hold duration; any board copy claim with no evidencing document; any redistribution row with no contact name; and the total weight and cost on the waste list.

## Rules
- Codex sorts, computes, records and checks. It never invents, never changes a routing supplied by the kitchen, never writes or rewrites the dish, never rewrites the board copy, and never decides that an item is safe.
- Never mark an item past its use-by date as eligible to cook, to sell, to donate or to use in a staff meal. That routing is contradicted in every file it appears in and listed in `gaps.md`.
- Never apply or record a sight, taste or smell test on an item whose `label_type` is `use by`. That test is recorded only against `best before` items.
- Never write `yes` into `done_before_printed_date`, `updated_before_service` or `arranged` on inference. Each is `yes` only where the input says so and carries a date or a name.
- Never write an allergen not among the 14 names supplied, and never mark one `no` where the ingredient list was `not supplied`.
- Never state that a dish is safe, that the venue complies with food safety or allergen law, or that an item is fit to serve.
- Never publish, post, send or schedule anything. `board-copy.md` is a draft for a named person to approve.
- Never write a benchmark, an industry average or a typical surplus figure for a venue of this type.
- Weights are weighed or counted. Anything else carries the words `estimated by kitchen` in the same cell and is never totalled with measured weights without the total saying so.
- Use British English, GBP for money, kilograms to two decimal places, degrees Celsius written as `70C` in CSV cells, and DD Month YYYY for every date. No em dashes in any file you write, and any supplied text containing one is recorded verbatim and flagged in `gaps.md`.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the head chef and owner to check against their own food safety management system and allergen records before it is relied on; it is not food safety advice and it does not certify that any item is safe to serve.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written, the row count of each CSV, the number of surplus items by `routing`, the total weight and invoice cost on the waste list with the reason breakdown, every item whose routing was contradicted by its date label or chill history, the number of life extensions recorded and how many were confirmed as done before the printed date, the surplus weight the dish absorbs against the total available, the dish's core temperature and time, hold temperature and reheat count, the count of the 14 allergens marked `present`, `no` and `not supplied` with whoever updates the record and when, which of the seven flagged words appear in the board copy, the number of board copy claims with no evidencing document, the number of redistribution rows with a named contact, and the `gaps.md` item count.