This document presents a system and method for authors or consumers to obtain the same unique, universal classification identifier for every one of the thousands of recipes for the same dish. In this fashion, every one of thousands of chicken parmigiana recipes may have the same unique, universal classification identifier. The data for each of the hundreds or thousands of recipes for a particular dish could be aggregated under the single recipe classification. A consumer may present a recipe containing the universal classification identifier to capture recipe data at a retail establishment. This data could then be scanned at a Point-of-Sale terminal and reported to the retail establishment or other client to inform decisions regarding marketing, advertising, production strategies, and other outreach to consumers.