Availability (sold-out & low stock)
What Is It?
Availability decides — automatically — when a dish should show as sold out or low stock to your customers and staff, based on the dish's recipe and your current stock.
No more switching dishes off by hand when an ingredient runs out, and no more forgetting to switch them back on. When you restock, the dish comes back on its own.
How It Works (Simply)
For each dish, Foody reads its recipe (ingredients + preparations) and your current stock, then works out how many portions you can still make — limited by whichever ingredient runs out first.
- Plenty in stock → the dish is available.
- Down to the last few → low stock (e.g. "3 left").
- Can't make even one → sold out (greyed out; customers can't order it).
Important: a dish only tracks availability if it has a recipe. Open the dish, go to the Recipe tab, and add its ingredients and preparations. A dish with no recipe is always available — so drinks and uncosted items never disappear.
Rules
Rules control how availability behaves, and you can reuse them across dishes. Go to Kitchen → Availability.
Each rule has:
- Track stock — turn it off for pantry items (drinks, staples you never run out of) so they stay always available.
- Low-stock warning at ≤ N — when the "N left" badge appears (0 = never warn).
- When out of stock — show a Sold out badge, or hide the dish entirely.
- Show remaining count — show customers "3 left", or just a generic badge.
Foody ships three starter rules you can edit or copy:
| Rule | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Standard (default) | Tracks stock, warns at ≤ 5, sold-out badge, shows the count. |
| Made fresh daily | Tracks stock, warns earlier (≤ 3). |
| Always available | Never tracks stock — always orderable. |
A dish uses its own rule if set, otherwise its category's rule, otherwise the default.
Overriding a single dish ("86")
On a dish's Recipe → Availability panel you'll see the live count ("Buildable now: 12 portions, limited by …") and an override:
- Auto — use the computed availability (the normal setting).
- Always available — force it orderable even if stock says otherwise.
- Force sold out — manually 86 a dish; set it back to Auto later.
The override always wins over the rule.
Examples
- Tuna runs out. Every dish whose recipe uses tuna goes sold out across web and POS. Receive more tuna in Stock and they come back automatically.
- A sauce preparation hits 0. Dishes using that prep go sold out. Produce a new batch in Preparations and they recover.
- Bottled drinks. Put them on the Always available rule so they never auto-disappear.
Good to know
- Availability is enforced at checkout: if a dish sells out while a customer is browsing, the order is blocked with a clear message.
- On the POS, sold-out dishes are dimmed and can't be added; re-enable one with the Always available override.