Weikel’s Bakery Wins Award for Recipeasy App

The philosophy at Weikel’s Store & Bakery is “Everyone is capable of working with proper training” and this is easily shown by Weikel’s newly created award-winning app Recipeasy which makes learning to bake and practicing life skills accessible for people with disabilities.

The 2020 Lex Frieden Employment Awards were announced in October and Weikel’s Store & Bakery won the Medium Employer Award for providing work opportunities for those with disabilities through the app developed by owner Philip Weikel himself. The Lex Frieden Employment Awards are named in honor of disability rights champion and independent living movement leader, Lex Frieden.

The Recipeasy app is all about making custom recipes more easy to follow, set up, and train employees in a more efficient and timely way. The app itself is iPad-based and uses Bluetooth and wireless technologies to connect with scales and printers, helping employees with the recipemaking process. The app is adaptable to your needs. You can add your own pictures, videos, and audio to fit your individual needs.

The app idea first started around five years ago when Weikel wanted to grow his business. Weikel’s business partner Nick Hensley said, “Philip wanted to grow his business and for his employers to have access and learn his recipes when he or his family couldn’t be there. All we had was a kitchen full of notebooks with recipes, so we saw the need we wanted to execute didn’t exist, therefore we decided to build a universal app.” The app’s initial design was to help the English as a Second Language bakers, but it grew into helping students and adults with disabilities.

Weikel’s Brenham location was one of the first Weikel locations to see the app in its full potential when they partnered with Project Search students out of Brenham. Project Search provides individuals with disabilities, like autism, a professional career experience and the capability to learn life skills in a work environment.

The need for the app has also extended to not only employees and owners in the career field but educational as well. Hensley said, “We got to thinking about it and realized it was too big of an opportunity and software to help people run their business disability or not for us not to make a business of its own.” It can help an array of students in many areas. For example, students in the culinary art field can use it to self-pace through recipes. Students who have intellectual or developmental disabilities can learn everyday life skills, like brushing their teeth or how to get dressed in the morning.

They now have a contract with the Texas Workforce Comission after the agency saw how helpful it has been to people with disabilities in the career and educational field. Weikel and Hensley continue to get offers. “We are just a start up and getting both career and educational people interested across the country is something that we didn’t expect and we are so excited to share this with everyone,” said Hensley.

The name itself was a little tricky to come by at first, but once Weikel thought the recipe execution aspect of the product, the Recipeasy name was created. However, with the app’s growing popularity within the educational field, Weikel and Hensley were thinking of a name change or building an educational app all on its own. “We thought it through and the educational and life skills side of the app still make since because we are helping individuals be successful, so it is a recipe for success,” said Weikel.

You can find more information about the app on https://recipeasy.io and you can download the app for your iPad free on the App Store. It does require a subscription from the website.

The app has not only changed the way the employees and individuals are learning, but both Weikel and Hensley as well. “I get a warm feeling on the inside to be able to see what you are doing is helping people and it makes you feel like you are contributing to society in a different way, its inspirational,” said Weikel. Hensley added, “Overall we want to encourage and help businesses to see the success in hiring and working with individuals with disabilities like we have.”

Recipeasy is the recipe for success, after all.