Help with the business of meal prep.
Step-by-step guides for meal prep owners, covering your menu, orders, prep, delivery and the customers you want back, with the math shown.
Plan the menu
Take orders & get paid
- How to take meal prep orders online, and keep cards safeForms, payment links, Venmo, online stores or meal prep software: what each costs you, and why a card number should never go on a Google Form.
- How to choose an order cutoff for your meal prep businessWork backward from delivery to find your order cutoff, see three real weekly schedules, and decide what to do about late orders.
- How to run a meal prep subscription that customers don't quitSet up recurring subscriptions and meal plans customers trust: what repeats, pause and skip, failed cards, clear terms and the rules on renewals.
Prep & pack
- How to turn a week of orders into a prep listTurn a week of orders into counts your kitchen can cook from: how to set up the sheet, total by what you make, and catch mistakes before prep day.
- How much food to buy for your meal prep ordersBuy from your orders with no warehouse and little waste: cooking loss, recipe math, buffers and supplier sizes, worked through with a sample week.
- How to print meal prep labels, from mail merge to thermal printersPrint meal labels from a spreadsheet with a mail merge: templates, label sizes, fridge-proof stock, thermal printers, and what your label should say.
Pickup, delivery & shipping
- Pickup locations or home delivery: how to make fewer stopsCut your delivery stops with pickup locations at gyms and offices: the stop math, what to agree with a partner, and keeping food cold.
- How to plan meal prep delivery routes, free and paidRoute by hand in Google Maps, then compare free and paid route planners: stop limits, prices, and what goes wrong on delivery day.
Bring customers back
Run the business
- How to calculate your meal prep profit marginsWork out what each meal and each month really leave you: food after cooking, packaging, labor, discounts and everything else. A worked example with the formulas.
- When to move your meal prep business off a spreadsheetThe signs you have outgrown your order spreadsheet, what it really costs you, and how to move your menu and customers without a bad week.