Meal prep companies, with gumption.
A meal prep ordering system that tells the kitchen what to cook
The menu changes every week, orders arrive right up to the deadline, and somebody has to turn them into a cooking list, a pile of labelled tubs and a delivery round before the rice goes on. We build meal prep businesses the ordering, subscriptions and delivery days that make that sum easy, and the marketing that brings in next month's regulars.
Sound familiar?
A new menu, and orders everywhere.
The new menu goes up on Instagram on Wednesday, and orders come back as comments, DMs, WhatsApp messages and bank transfers referenced "food x5". One regular swaps the chilli for the curry after you've ordered the beef. Another asks an hour after the cut-off whether it's too late. It usually isn't, which is exactly how the cut-off stopped meaning anything.
Adding up the cooking list.
When orders close, somebody sits down with a spreadsheet and a strong coffee. Twenty-eight chicken tikka, nineteen veggie chilli, six of them large, two with no coriander, one with no rice. Miss an order and a customer gets an apologetic text on delivery day. Count one twice and there's a spare lunch. Until the sums are done, the wholesale order can't go in either.
The round lives in one head.
Some postcodes get Sunday evening, some get Monday, and a few people collect from the kitchen door. One leaves a cool box behind the bins, another wants the bag left with next door, and one block of flats has a door code nobody wrote down. It works while the usual driver is on, and turns into chilled food and guesswork the week they're not.
Batch cooked on Sunday. Batch invoiced by Monday.
Meal prep software, from menu to cool box.
Every system is built around how your meal prep business already works. Here are some of the things we'd build for meal prep companies. Online shops. How our bespoke systems work.
Next week's menu and the cut-off.
Post next week's dishes with prices, portion sizes and a photo, and set the moment ordering closes, such as Thursday at nine for a Sunday cook. Until then, customers order and pay on your website. After it, the menu moves on to the following week, and anyone messaging late can be pointed to it without a long apology.
Cooking totals and meal labels.
When orders close, the screen shows how many of each dish to cook, split by portion size and by any swaps you allow, such as no rice. Print it for the kitchen wall and write the wholesale order from it. Each meal gets a label with the customer's name, the dish, its allergens and the delivery day.
Allergens, portions and macros per dish.
Each dish holds the allergens you've listed, its portion sizes and, if you work them out, the calories and macros for each size. They show on the menu, the order and the label from one record, so a recipe change is made once. We don't calculate nutrition or write allergen information: it comes from you, shown exactly as given.
Subscriptions and repeat orders.
Regulars sign up for a set number of meals a week, picking from each new menu or leaving the choice to you. Payment is taken when ordering closes. A link in every email lets them miss a week, pause while they're away or change how many meals they get, and anyone who hasn't chosen gets a nudge before the cut-off.
Delivery days by area and click and collect.
Each postcode is matched to your van's days there, so customers only see dates you can keep, plus collection slots at the kitchen. They tell you which step or porch the cool box lives on. The driver follows the round stop by stop, and each customer hears by text once the van is heading their way.
Real work
Tony, aka Mr Moussaka.
Tony cooks his family's Greek recipes and delivers them every other Friday around Calderdale, chilled and ready to reheat. Alongside the regular Greek menu there are specials, supper clubs and one-off menus, so the website has to know what's cooking and when.
“I now have a system that sorts out the pick list, orders the delivery route, emails out cooking instructions and allergens, and reminds people to leave a review at the end of the week.”
- Order by Wednesday, cooked for Friday. Customers pick a delivery Friday and the orders close at 11am on the Wednesday before, so Tony knows exactly what to cook.
- Delivery by postcode. Each postcode is either on the Friday route or it isn't, and customers can see which before they order.
- A dips board that rewards a bigger order. The more dips you pick, the more you save, worked out as you choose.
- Specials and one-off menus. A specials board that changes every couple of months, plus supper clubs and one-off menus with their own dates, all sitting alongside the regular menu.
- A catering builder. Tell it how many you're feeding and it sketches a menu and a price in minutes.
Found when people search meal prep near me.
A lot of customers find you through the gym, or by eyeing up a colleague's lunch. The rest search for "meal prep near me", "meal prep Bradford", "high protein meal prep" or "gluten free meal prep", and get national subscription brands mixed in with local kitchens running their own vans. Your Google Business Profile gets the postcodes you deliver to and your collection times, and your website leads with next week's menu.
Then come the questions, which barely change. When do orders close? Do you deliver to my postcode? Can I pause while I'm on holiday? How many calories are in the chicken? Is the chilli gluten free? Each gets answered properly on the website, sounding like you, with nutrition and allergen details exactly as you supply them. Real photos of this week's dishes, in the tubs they really come in, sell a menu better than any stock salad.
An illustration, not a real client
Example: a unit kitchen with a Sunday cook.
This kitchen is invented, so treat it as a sketch of a build rather than a story about anyone. Two people cook from a small industrial unit, post the menu on Wednesday, take orders by Instagram message until Friday night and cook on Sunday. We'd move ordering to their own website with a firm cut-off, turn the orders into cooking totals and labels, put regulars on subscriptions they can pause themselves, and split delivery into Sunday evening and Monday rounds by postcode, with Monday teatime collection from the unit.
Questions meal prep companies ask.
How much does a meal prep ordering system cost?
That depends on what it needs to handle, so we look at a normal week first, from posting the menu to the last drop, then fix a price for the build. A menu with a cut-off and cooking totals is a smaller job than adding subscriptions, labels and delivery days, and plenty of kitchens start small. Anything with its own running cost, like card payments and texts, is set up in your name so you pay the providers directly.
Will it work for customers ordering on a phone?
Yes, and most of them will. The menu is built for a phone first: scroll the dishes, tap a portion size, check the allergens and macros, and pay. Subscribers manage their week from a link in their email. In the kitchen, the totals and labels run from a tablet or a laptop, and the driver's round works on a phone or on paper.
What if a customer wants to change their order after the cut-off?
You set the rule, and the system sticks to it. Before the cut-off, customers change, swap or skip on their own. After it, their order shows as locked, with your policy written underneath, so nobody's surprised. You can still make an exception from your screen, and the cooking totals and labels update to match. Showing the rule at sign-up saves an awkward conversation later.
Can we show calories and macros for each meal?
Yes. Each dish can carry calories, protein, carbs and fat for every portion size, shown on the menu and printed on the label. You supply the figures and we show them exactly as you enter them, without working anything out ourselves. Tag dishes as high protein, vegetarian or gluten free, if that's what your recipes say, and customers can filter the menu by them.
Do I need to register a meal prep business?
Gov.uk says anyone who cooks, sells or distributes food needs to register as a food business with their local council, and that includes people working from home or selling only online. The council's food safety team is the place to ask about everything else. We build the system to keep what they ask you to keep, such as each dish's ingredients and allergens in one place.
Why not use an order form builder or a shop platform?
Form builders such as Jotform and shop platforms such as Shopify suit plenty of meal prep businesses, especially in the early weeks, and if one fits, use it. Building your own makes sense once the menu, cut-off, subscriptions, cooking totals and delivery rounds need to work as one, so a late swap changes the totals, the label and the round without anyone retyping it.
Also with gumption.
Trades with a lot in common with meal prep companies. Or see everyone we help.
Let's sort your meal prep business out.
Tell us how things run now, paper, spreadsheets and all. We'll tell you honestly what we'd build for a meal prep company like you, and what we wouldn't bother with.