Terms of Service

1. Who we are

Prepd Foods (Pty) Ltd ("Prepd", "we", "us") prepares and delivers chef-made meals in Cape Town, South Africa. These terms apply to every order placed through prepd.co.za. By placing an order you agree to them, so please read them — they are short and in plain language on purpose.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your personal information and forms part of these terms.

2. Ordering

Meals are delivered on set delivery days each week, shown at checkout. Each delivery day has an order cutoff the evening before, also shown at checkout. Orders placed after a cutoff go to the next available delivery day.

Every order is a single, one-off purchase. There is no subscription, no plan, and no card kept on file — nothing is ever charged automatically. We may send you a reminder before a delivery day; you order only if you choose to.

• Prices are in South African Rand and include VAT where applicable.
• The price you see at checkout is the price you pay. If a first-order discount applies, it is shown as its own line before you confirm.
• We reserve the right to decline or cancel an order — for example if a meal is unavailable, an address is outside our delivery area, or payment does not clear — and will refund anything already paid.
• Menus change. A meal shown on the site may be replaced or withdrawn before your delivery day; if that affects an order you have paid for, we will contact you.

3. Payment

Payment is taken at checkout through Yoco, a South African payment provider. Your card details are entered on Yoco's secure page and are never seen or stored by Prepd. An order is confirmed only once payment has cleared; until then no meals are prepared and no delivery is booked.

4. Delivery and collection

We deliver to the Cape Town City Bowl and inner suburbs. The suburbs we cover are listed on the site and checked at checkout; if yours is not covered you can join the waiting list for it or choose self-collection.

Delivery is charged at a single flat rate regardless of distance. Deliveries are made by a courier partner during the time window you choose at checkout.

• Please make sure someone is available at the address during your chosen window. The courier will call the number on your order on arrival.
• If nobody can be reached and the box cannot be left safely, it is returned to our kitchen. Because meals are perishable we cannot re-deliver a returned box on a later day, and the order is treated as fulfilled — see our Refund Policy.
• Delivery windows are estimates. Traffic, weather and courier availability can move them, and we will keep you informed where we can, but a late delivery within the same day is not a ground for refund.
• Self-collection is from our kitchen at the address and time slot shown at checkout.

5. Changing or cancelling an order

You can cancel an order yourself from your account, or by contacting us, at any time before the cutoff for its delivery day. Cancelled before the cutoff, you receive a full refund.

After the cutoff your meals are being prepared and the order can no longer be cancelled or changed. This is not a limitation we impose lightly: fresh food made for you cannot be resold, and the cutoff exists so that the kitchen only cooks what has been paid for.

Under South Africa's Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, the seven-day cooling-off right for online purchases does not apply to foodstuffs and perishable goods. Our own cancellation window above applies instead.

6. Allergens and dietary needs

Our kitchen handles nuts, gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, sesame, fish and shellfish. We list the allergens each meal contains and, where a meal can be made without one, we say so — but every meal is prepared in a shared kitchen and we cannot guarantee that any meal is entirely free of any allergen.

If you have a serious allergy, please tell us at checkout. We will leave out anything that is not safe for you, and where we cannot make a meal safe we will say so rather than guess.

• Allergy orders are for one person at a time. We cannot guarantee that the right meal reaches the right person once a household's food travels together in one box, so an allergy order must be placed on its own.
• Nutritional figures are calculated from recipes and are a guide, not a laboratory analysis.

7. Food safety once delivered

Meals are delivered chilled and must be refrigerated as soon as they arrive. Please follow the storage and reheating guidance on the packaging. We cannot accept responsibility for food that has been left out, stored incorrectly, or eaten after the date on the label.

8. Your account

You are responsible for keeping your password private and for anything done through your account. Tell us straight away if you think someone else has access to it. We may close an account that is used to abuse our service or our team.

9. Gift cards

Gift cards are sent to the recipient by email on the date you choose, can be used against any order on the site, and do not expire. They cannot be exchanged for cash.

10. Our liability

Nothing in these terms limits any right you have under the Consumer Protection Act or any other law that cannot be excluded. Beyond that, our liability to you for any order is limited to the amount you paid for it.

11. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. The version on this page at the time you place an order is the one that applies to that order. If we make a change that matters, we will say so on the site.

12. Contact

Questions about these terms, or about an order, can be sent through the contact page. We are a small team and we do read every message.