Meal Prep Order Form Template
A weekly meal-prep ordering sheet — meals per week, proteins, allergies, and delivery day — resubmitted each week as the menu rotates.
Lock in your meals for next week. Orders close Thursday night so we can shop Friday and cook Sunday — you'll be invoiced with your delivery.
Next week's rotation and your invoice arrive here.
Pick everything you enjoy — variety helps us balance the week.
Allergies in CAPS please — they're flagged on every label.
Meal prep runs on a weekly heartbeat — orders close, shopping happens, Sunday is for cooking, and coolers go out the door. Every client who orders late or vaguely arrhythmias that heartbeat. This form is the metronome: it closes when the kitchen needs it closed, asks exactly what the cook list requires, and gets resubmitted fresh each week so preferences never go stale.
Why these fields. The name field says "for meal labels" because that's literally where it goes — containers get labeled per client, and label-friendly names save Sunday minutes. Meals-per-week is the volume driver and the pricing tier in one choice, with plain descriptions of what each count covers. Proteins are a multi-select asking what clients enjoy rather than what they demand — the description nudges toward variety, which is what lets a rotating menu work. The avoid-and-allergies field is required with a CAPS convention for true allergies; that convention flows through to your kitchen sheet, where the difference between "dislikes cilantro" and "PEANUT ALLERGY" must survive a busy Sunday. Portion plan captures the athlete-versus-light split that changes container math, and the split-delivery option exists because food quality peaks twice a week, not once.
What we left out. Dish-level menu selection — the weekly rotation is the chef's efficiency engine, and per-dish picking turns a prep business into a restaurant. Also macros calculators and calorie targets: those are consultation topics that set expectations a label can't verify.
Who uses this. Solo meal-prep chefs cooking for 15–40 weekly clients, gym-attached prep services where trainers refer clients, and caterers filling quiet weekdays with subscription-style volume.
Make it yours. Put the weekly cutoff in the intro and enforce it with a close date each Thursday — reopening Friday with next week's rotation takes seconds and trains the rhythm. Leave duplicate prevention off since the same clients order weekly; each submission is that week's truth. Export the CSV Friday morning: meals-per-week sums into your shopping quantities, and the proteins and avoid columns become the cook sheet. A webhook can drop each order into your kitchen channel as it lands.
Capacity math before you say yes. Your real ceiling is measured in meals, not clients: sum the meals-per-week column and hold it against what your oven blocks and fridge shelving can genuinely turn out in one Sunday. Cap responses at that number so the form declines the order you cannot cook. Two derived figures deserve a weekly glance — how many distinct proteins the selections force (past four, the cook stretches thin and the shopping fragments) and how the portion column shifts your container order, because athlete portions burn through the larger boxes at their own rate.
Invoiced with delivery. The ending says the invoice travels with the food, settled weekly or monthly as agreed. Subscription-ish businesses run on relationship billing — the form keeps the kitchen precise while the money stays personal.
Frequently asked questions
How do clients pay for their weekly meals?
You invoice with delivery — weekly or monthly per client agreement. The form locks the cook list; billing stays in the relationship, where prep businesses usually keep it.
Do clients fill this in every week?
Yes — that's the design. Weekly resubmission keeps allergies and portions current, and each week's responses are that week's cook list. Leave duplicate prevention off.
How do I turn responses into a shopping list?
Export CSV Friday morning: meal counts sum into volumes, protein preferences shape the rotation, and the avoid column flags per-client swaps — one spreadsheet, whole week planned.
Can I enforce my Thursday-night cutoff?
Set the close date and time in Settings each week with a "kitchen's planning — back Friday" message. Clients learn the rhythm fast when the form holds the line kindly.