Ingredient Verification & Merging (Beta)

This article explains how to use the Ingredient Merging feature to clean up duplicate ingredients in your library and build a well-structured master ingredient catalogue.

This feature is currently in closed beta. Contact your Customer Success Manager to request access.

Why this feature matters: building a clean ingredient library

If you work with multiple integrated suppliers, you've likely run into this: the same physical product — say, a 1kg bag of flour — appears in your library multiple times because each supplier integration creates its own ingredient entry. Over time, this leads to a fragmented library where the same product lives under several names, making reporting, stock management, and procurement harder to manage.

Ingredient Merging is how you fix that — and keep it clean going forward.

The recommended approach for multi-supplier setups is:

Create one generic "master" ingredient per product in your library (e.g. Flour 1kg). This is your canonical ingredient — the one used in recipes, tracked in stock, and reported on.
Use Ingredient Merging to fold all supplier-specific duplicate entries into that master. Their packages, supplier articles, GTINs, and stock history all move across.
Going forward, whenever a supplier integration creates a new duplicate article, simply merge it into the existing master.

The result is a library where each ingredient represents a real product concept, and all the sourcing and supplier details live as packages under that single ingredient.

Ingredient Merging vs. Stock Variants

You may be wondering how this differs from Stock Variants, which also lets you manage multiple versions of an ingredient.

	Ingredient Merging	Stock Variants
Purpose	Permanently consolidate duplicates into one master	Manage genuinely different but interchangeable products
Outcome	One ingredient remains; the source is archived	Both ingredients remain active in the library
Use case	Same product entered twice (e.g. from two integrations), or similar products you want to track as one	Different products that can substitute each other (e.g. Sunflower Oil / Olive Oil)
Recipes	All references update automatically to the master	Recipe can reference either; system auto-substitutes based on stock
Reversible?	Yes — can be undone at any time	Yes — simply remove the variant relationship

In short: use Stock Variants when two genuinely different products are interchangeable in your kitchen. Use Ingredient Merging when two entries in your library actually represent the same product.

Stock Variants are not supported in all modules or functionalities of the software (e.g. the financial tab and bills of materials).

How to merge an ingredient

From the ingredient detail page

Open the ingredient detail page of the ingredient you want to remove (the source).
Click the Tools dropdown in the top toolbar and select "Merge ingredient into another".
Search for and select the ingredient you want to keep (the target / master).
Review the comparison view, which shows key differences between the two ingredients: recipes, allergens, packages, GTINs, and supplier articles.
Confirm the merge.

In bulk from the Ingredient list view

You can also merge multiple ingredients at once directly from the list view:

Apply the Verified for production filter, set to No, to surface all unverified ingredients in your library.
Select the ingredients you want to merge.
Under Selection, choose Verify and Merge.

After merging, Apicbase will:

Transfer all packages (stock items) from the source to the target
Update all recipes referencing the source to point to the target ingredient instead
Consolidate GTINs and supplier articles
Archive the source ingredient so it no longer appears in your active library

Note: The target ingredient's allergens, nutritional values, and name are never overwritten. Always check the comparison view for any differences you may want to manually reconcile afterwards.

How to undo a merge

Every merge can be fully reverted. Open the target ingredient, find the merge record in the 'info & categories' tab, and click Undo Merge. Apicbase will restore the source ingredient and undo all changes.

Rules and restrictions

You can merge multiple source ingredients into the same master, one by one.
You cannot merge a target (master) ingredient into yet another ingredient. Once an ingredient has been used as a merge target, it cannot become a source in a new merge. This restriction exists to keep the revert chain intact and predictable.
You cannot merge archived ingredients as a source.

Known limitations (Beta)

Same-supplier package conflict If both the source and target already have a purchase article from the same supplier for a stock item of the same size, the source package will be destroyed during the merge.

Coming soon: Support for multiple packages from the same supplier within the same stock item is planned for the next release. Once live, this limitation will no longer apply.

PAR levels, MIN quantities, and storage locations These are kept from the target ingredient only. Review and update them manually after merging if needed.

Order templates If a purchase article is destroyed during a merge (see above), order templates referencing that article may become invalid. Check your order templates afterwards.

Need help?

If something doesn't look right after a merge, contact your Customer Success Manager or reach out via in-app support. It helps to include the names of the source and target ingredients and the approximate time the merge took place.