Bulk importing recipes with a CSV file

Looking to bring over recipes to your Shopify store from your Wordpress site, or pre-existing recipe solution? Recently released is a super handy bulk recipe import via CSV feature in Recipe Kit for Shopify. 

This bulk import feature allows you save tons of time by importing hundreds of recipes at a time from a CSV file, as opposed to creating them one by one within Recipe Kit. 

Note - this feature was just recently released, so is still in preliminary testing phase. If you have any questions at all, send me an email at help@recipekit.app and I can test out your CSV file for import issues, etc.

So, let's get started!

Important: I would suggest starting with one or two test recipes; uploading those to Recipe Kit; and ensuring the formatting is working properly. Once the test recipes are done, you can work on formatting the other data for import.

1. Prepare Your CSV File

Recipe Kit requires quite specific formatting at the moment to import the recipes into the app. While most of the fields are straight forward to import, some require some extra formatting. 

First off, download the Recipe Kit CSV template here: Recipe Kit Example CSV.

Open the template in Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, whichever editor works best for you.

In that file you will see the top row is populated with the recipe fields:

• recipe_title
• recipe_description
• recipe_image
• recipe_author
• recipe_category
• etc, etc etc.

Below that you will see a few test recipes with most of the columns filled with information. Use these test recipes as reference while you are filling out your recipe information later on.

Fill out as many fields as possible to best take advantage of the features of Recipe Kit :)

Formatting

The majority of the fields in the Recipe Kit CSV file are self explanatory. Enter the recipe title in the recipe_title field, etc.
But there are a few 'unique' fields that require some extra attention:

status

recipe_image

Paste in an external image URL here. For example, a publicly accessible link to an image on your current website.
Recipe Kit can't access private Google Drive or Dropbox URLs; but it should be able to access public links from those sites.

Note: Recipe Kit only allows for ONE featured recipe image; please only paste in one external image URL into this field.

blog_post_url

If you have existing blog posts you want to attach this specific recipe to, paste in the Shopify admin URL here.
For example, while viewing the blog post in Shopify you may see the URL of:

https://yourstoredomain.myshopify.com/admin/blogs/49520902257/articles/387538419825

The part of the URL we need here is everything after the .com part. So, using the example above we want the following to be pasted into this field:

/admin/blogs/49520902257/articles/387538419825

Paste that into each relevant recipe row, and when creating the recipe we will add the recipe to that blog post!

blog_parent_id 

If you do not have pre-existing blog posts, we can create new blog posts on your store to associate the recipe to. This field requires your Shopify blog's ID.
This ID can be found by navigating to, for example, your "Recipes" blog in the Shopify Admin. Clicking into the specified blog, view the URL and you will see:

/admin/blogs/49520902257

We specifically want the number that is after /admin/blogs/, so in this example, our blog ID is:

49520902257

Paste this into rows where you want a new blog post created for the recipe. The blog post will be created within the blog specified in this field.

enable_rating

If you want to enable/disable the star rating on this specific recipe, fill in either:
TRUE
or
FALSE
in this field.

recipe_video

Paste in the full Youtube URL of a video for this recipe. Make sure you use the full Youtube URL, for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEyPiTiP9zI

Using a youtube short URL, like www.youtu.be or similar will not work.

recipe_tags

Recipe tags are a 'multiple' field, meaning you can have multiple tags on one recipe (similar to how you can have multiple ingredients, or multiple directions on a recipe). You will need to format your recipe tags in a certain way for the CSV file to understand what is going on here.

Let's say our recipe has the tags / keywords of:

• Vegan
• Dessert
• Pie
• Summer

In the recipe_tags field of the CSV you will need to format this as the following, exactly:

Vegan;Dessert;Pie;Summer

So, what did we do here? We simply separated the tags with a ; semi-colon.

Paste the tags like the above example and you are good to go for recipe tags / keywords!

recipe_ingredients

Similar to the recipe_tags field above, recipe ingredients need to be formatted to allow for multiple entries into the recipe CSV.

Let's say our recipe has the following ingredient list:

• 1 cup of flour
• 2 cups of chocolate
• 1 egg

You would need to reformat the above to the following, exactly:

1 cup of flour;2 cups of chocolate;1 egg

Simply split the ingredients up with a semi-colon like ; to separate them as different ingredients.

Need to add ingredient group headings to the ingredient list?

Simply add the word HEAD: to the beginning of your group heading. For example, adding a heading to our example above:

HEAD: Cookies; 1 cup of flour; 2 cups of chocolate; 1 egg

The above example would create a new group heading in the recipe card called "Cookies".

recipe_directions

Recipe directions follows the same format as the recipe_ingredients row above. One major thing to note is to remove any trace of a "numbered" system for the directions. Recipe Kit automatically adds the "stepped" numbering system to recipes.

Let's say our recipe has the following direction list:

1. Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees
2. Mix flour with chocolate chips and egg
3. Place on baking tray
4. Cook for 45 minutes
5. Serve with a sprinkle of salt

You would need to reformat the above to the following, exactly:

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees; Mix flour with chocolate chips and egg; Place on baking tray; Serve with a sprinkle of salt

Need to add direction group headings to the direction list?

Same deal as the ingredient group headings, simply add the word HEAD: before your group heading. For example:

HEAD: Baking Process; Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees; Mix flour with chocolate chips and egg; Place on baking tray; HEAD: Serving; Serve with a sprinkle of salt

nutrition_data

Following similar structures to the recipe_ingredients and recipe_directions fields, nutrition_data allows you to add in various nutrition fields to your recipe.

See example data here:

Carbs: 24;Cholesterol: 100; Fat: 12;Fiber: 31; Protein: 32; Saturated Fat: 33; Sodium: 34; Sugar: 35; Trans Fat: 36; Unsaturated Fat: 37

As you can see, the formatting is as previously discussed: each field separated by semi-colons. Each nutrition field follows the structure of:

Nutrition Field Title: Number of grams/milligrams in recipe

Ensure that you follow the below guide on exact titles, as well as units of measurement that corresponds for each field.

DO NOT INCLUDE "grams" or "milligrams" in the CSV file. These are automatically assigned to each field according to the data below:

Carbohydrates

Title: Carbs
Measurement: grams

Cholesterol

Title: Cholesterol
Measurement: milligrams

Fat

Title: Fat
Measurement: grams

Fiber

Title: Fiber
Measurement: grams

Protein

Title: Protein
Measurement: grams

Saturated Fat

Title: Saturated Fat
Measurement: grams

Sodium

Title: Sodium
Measurement: milligrams

Sugar

Title: Sugar
Measurement: grams

Trans Fat

Title: Trans Fat
Measurement: grams

Unsaturated Fat

Title: Unsaturated Fat
Measurement: grams

2. Import Bulk CSV into Recipe Kit on Shopify

Next, open up Recipe Kit on your Shopify store.

Navigate to the App Settings page.

Scroll down, and on the right hand side you will see an "Bulk Import Recipes" section.

There you can upload your saved recipe CSV from step #1.

Click the "Upload CSV File" button, and Recipe Kit will start processing your recipes!

Note - this process may take a long time, depending on the number of recipes / blog posts that need to be created. Please be patient.

If Recipe Kit shows an error, saying it couldn't upload the recipes, don't worry! Send me an email at help@recipekit.app, include your recipe CSV file, and I can take a look and tell you what is going on!