Like many chefs, the founder of meez, Josh Sharkey, started his culinary career with a little black notebook—filled with recipes, techniques, and ideas that shaped his craft.
Working at Tabla in New York City, he spent his mornings crafting charcuterie and his days refining his skills in kitchens across the city. But one pivotal moment at Veritas, where he was staging on his day off, changed everything: he lost the notebook.
At the time—more than 20 years ago—there was no Evernote, no Google Sheets, no recipe storage app to safeguard his work. The idea of digitizing recipes was simple but groundbreaking. That lost notebook planted the first seed of what would eventually become meez.
But over time, as he worked in, managed, and eventually owned restaurants, he saw a much more significant gap. Kitchens didn’t just need a digital recipe organizer—they needed a tool for collaboration, staff training, scalable batch sizes, unit conversions, and precise costing.
Yet, when he searched for software that could do all of this, all he found were inventory management platforms.
That realization turned frustration into action. If no one else was going to build the online recipe organizer that kitchens truly needed, he would. He stepped away from restaurant ownership and poured his experience into creating meez—a platform designed for the way chefs actually work.
Today, meez is more than just a recipe storage app—it’s a purpose-built culinary tool that empowers chefs to work more efficiently, accurately, and collaboratively than ever before.
Why meez Puts Recipes First
For years, most so-called recipe management tools treated recipes as little more than a list of ingredients—a way to calculate food costs and manage inventory. But any chef or operator knows that a recipe is far more than that.
- Recipes are intellectual property – they represent a chef’s ideas, creativity, and branding.
- They are the foundation of kitchen operations, not just a tool for finance teams.
- Costing is just one output of a recipe—not its primary function.
meez flips this outdated approach on its head. Instead of forcing chefs to work within the constraints of inventory platforms, meez was designed for how kitchens actually function. It prioritizes recipe accuracy, collaboration, and adaptability while seamlessly integrating costing, scaling, and unit conversions.
“The problem is that we’ve been looking at recipe tools the wrong way. Instead of starting with finance and adding recipes as an afterthought, we need to start with recipes and build everything else around them. That’s what meez is all about.”
Just like designers have Figma and architects have AutoCAD, chefs finally have a digital recipe organizer built for their craft—not just for finance teams.
meez was built to put recipes first, ensuring chefs can organize, scale, convert, and collaborate seamlessly—without feeling like they’re stuck using software from the ‘90s.
The Journey of Building meez
Transforming an idea into a fully realized software platform is never easy—especially when transitioning from a hands-on profession like cooking to the world of tech. For Josh, the process of building meez was filled with trial and error, and invaluable lessons along the way.
The first version of meez was a solo effort—Josh worked with an engineer, outlining his vision for a recipe management platform. However, the development process was slow, and the result didn’t quite meet expectations.
The second attempt involved an entire software team, yet the platform still wasn’t solving the correct problems for chefs. It wasn’t until he brought on MaryLee Rosenwald as CTO that things took a definitive turn. She scrapped everything and rebuilt the system from the ground up, creating the foundation for what meez is today.
With each version, the team gained a better understanding of what kitchens actually needed. One major insight was that chefs shouldn’t have to manually input ingredient data like yields and conversions—something every kitchen was doing on its own.
“At the time, every single kitchen was doing that themselves. Everyone was reinventing the wheel in their spreadsheets.”
Data Driven Precision
Instead of relying on outdated resources like The Book of Yields or scattered online information, meez built a recipe storage app that learns from real kitchens. By testing ingredients across hundreds of kitchens—measuring everything from garlic yield loss after peeling to weight changes when mincing—meez built a robust, real-world database.
This effort ensured:
- Ingredient consistency across all recipes and platforms.
- Accurate conversion and yield data, eliminating the need for manual calculations.
- A smarter, more reliable online recipe organizer, built for chefs by chefs.
By solving the problems that kitchens had always struggled with, meez became more than just another digital recipe organizer—it became a platform designed to empower chefs with data-driven precision and efficiency.
Cracking the Code on Recipe Formatting
One big challenge meez set out to solve was getting recipes into the platform quickly and accurately. Without that, the entire system would be pointless.
“When you write a recipe, it’s kind of the Wild West. There’s no standard format. Sometimes the quantity comes first, sometimes the unit, sometimes the ingredient. Sometimes it’s all over the place, and your instructions might be mixed in.”
To solve this, meez built a language model capable of parsing recipes in any format. The system had to recognize ingredients, units, quantities, and actions—no matter how they were written. Thousands of different recipe formats were fed into the system to train it, ensuring it could handle real-world variations.
The Complexities of Culinary Math
But text formatting wasn’t the only challenge. There were also inconsistent spellings and unit conversions to account for. Take "gram," for example—it could be written as "grm," "gram," "gm," or even "grrm" if misspelled. meez continuously updates its database so the system learns from every new entry.
Beyond text recognition, the platform had to make sense of culinary calculations.
- Baker’s percentages – Ingredients like flour and water in bread recipes are based on percentages, requiring meez to handle multiple variations of hydration ratios.
- Unit conversions – From ounces to grams to tablespoons, the system had to account for the different ways chefs measure ingredients.
Flexible measurements – When does "one to two tablespoons" become too vague? How should "a pinch" be interpreted? meez built logic to manage these nuances. - Scaling recipes – Originally, the system would automatically scale units up—for example, cups turning into quarts, then gallons. But chefs pushed back, preferring measurements to stay in familiar increments based on kitchen tools like Cambros.
“In the beginning, there were a lot of angry chefs, which I completely understand, because we just sort of picked ways to display things. Because you have to. That’s one of the things with code—you have to tell the computer what you want it to do, and that requires making a decision.”
By refining the system based on real-world feedback, meez turned recipe input and standardization into an intuitive, chef-friendly process—eliminating manual work and making kitchen operations smoother.
Boosts Back-of-House Retention and Staff Engagement
By solving issues like accurate scaling, unit of measurement conversions, and recipe format standardization, staff training becomes seamless with meez. Your team no longer has to decipher vague instructions or struggle with inconsistent measurements.
Instead, they get clear, actionable guidance exactly when they need it.
“One measure of success should be whether the team feels more empowered and set up for success. If you give them goals or tasks but not the right tools or resources, they won’t succeed, and that’s the fastest way to create unhappy team members.”
How meez Supports Kitchen Teams:
- Empower Staff for Success: meez ensures that kitchen teams have the right tools and resources to execute their tasks effectively. When employees feel supported, they are more engaged and satisfied in their roles.
- Designed for Daily Use: Teams that use meez rely on it every day. A tool that becomes an essential part of the workflow helps create consistency, reduces frustration, and improves overall efficiency.
- Eliminates Miscommunication: With real-time updates, built-in instructional videos, and clear recipe documentation, meez keeps everyone on the same page, reducing errors and streamlining kitchen operations.
- Provides Just-in-Time Training: Instead of lengthy training sessions, meez allows chefs to share quick, focused videos and images that demonstrate specific techniques or
Instead of making staff sit through a 30-minute training video, meez allows chefs to share a quick clip on how to slice a shallot or what a sauce should look like when properly reduced. This ensures consistency and efficiency while respecting the fast-paced nature of restaurant work.
By making daily tasks easier, meez helps restaurant teams feel more confident, engaged, and set up for success—leading to stronger retention and more positive kitchen culture.
A Tool Designed for You, by Chefs Like You
At the end of the day, meez is built to give chefs the flexibility they crave, while ensuring the operational backbone of your restaurant runs smoothly. Ultimately, meez helps you get your content in order.
From simplifying workflows, training, and recipe storage, your team has everything they need in one place without the mess of paper notebooks or scattered spreadsheets.
“As someone who has spent most of my life as a chef, there's nothing more rewarding than seeing chefs react to the product with excitement, saying things like, ‘Man, I wish I had this 20 years ago,’ or ‘We can tell this was built by other chefs.’ It's moments like these that reinforce the true value of what we're building.”
