Treat them as infrastructure
Selling a base ingredient earns coins once; using it in a finished recipe can support orders, sales and machine mastery. Keep a working reserve before listing extras.
Use short and long recipes by schedule
Queue cream or brown sugar while checking the farm actively, then load cheese, syrup or other long recipes before leaving. This improves uptime without constant alarms.
Reject expensive requests
An order asking for several scarce ingredients may cost more in lost production than its reward suggests. Deleting one request can protect many downstream recipes.
Add slots where they matter
Extra slots on frequently constrained machines provide lasting flexibility. Fill them only with a deliberate mix so one recipe does not consume the entire reserve.
Field note
Dairy and sugar are not ordinary sale goods; they are capacity for the rest of the farm.