From Kitchen to Fridge: What Happens to Your Prepd Box on Delivery Day

People ask us "when is it actually cooked?" more than any other question, and it's the right one to ask. Here's the whole day, hour by hour.

8PM, the night before: orders close

Every delivery day has a cutoff at 8PM the evening before — Sunday for Monday, Tuesday for Wednesday, Thursday for Friday. At that moment the day's orders are final. A few minutes later the kitchen gets its run sheet: every plate to cook, totalled up, plus every order with its window, its swaps and its allergens. The kitchen doesn't get pinged all week with orders trickling in. It gets one list, once, when it's real.

Morning: the cook

Sonoma Kitchen in Roeland Square, Gardens cooks the day's plates in the morning, from the run sheet, in the hours before the café gets busy. Jon and his team cook the way they'd cook for the counter: proper stock, proper seasoning, vegetables that were delivered that week. Plates that need a swap — no dairy, no gluten — are cooked separately and labelled.

Midday: chilled and packed

Cooked food is chilled quickly — that's the step that decides both safety and texture — then portioned, sealed and labelled with what's in it and its calories and macros. Boxes are packed per order and per window, so the 1PM run is packed before the 4PM run. When a window's boxes are ready, the kitchen marks them packed, and that's what books the drivers.

Afternoon: the driver

Delivery is by tracked courier, one driver per box, booked the moment the kitchen marks your window packed. You get a message when the driver is on the way with a live tracking link, and another when the box is at your door. Windows are 1–2PM, 4–6PM and 6–8PM; you pick the one that suits you at checkout. If you chose collection instead, you get a message when it's packed and waiting at the kitchen.

Evening: your fridge

Into the fridge the moment it arrives. Every plate is best within three to four days — which is why we deliver Monday, Wednesday and Friday rather than once a week. Heat for two to three minutes, and it tastes like it did at midday.

And if something goes wrong

Behind all of this there's a watchdog: if a window is about to open and a box hasn't got a driver, the kitchen is told, and if it's still stuck, Shaun is. Nobody's box goes quiet. It's the part of the system you'll hopefully never see, and it's the part we spent the longest on.