Chef identity
Chef profiles are tied to an account, verification status, review history, and admin-reviewed onboarding materials before booking.
Trust & Safety
A safer way to book in-home weekly meal prep.
Meal Prep Direct is built around real cooks entering real homes. That means trust is not a slogan: it is identity review, address privacy, allergen disclosure, grocery receipts, incident response, and clear booking events when something goes sideways.
What we do not hide
Groceries are separate from labor.
Tips and bonuses are separate from groceries and labor.
Private document URLs are never exposed on public chef profiles.
Street addresses are not shown to chefs until booking confirmation.
Food safety training
Food-safety certificates can be displayed as verification badges without exposing private document links or raw uploads.
Work experience
Chefs describe restaurant, catering, private-chef, culinary school, or serious home-cooking experience during onboarding.
Home access safety
Street address stays hidden from chefs until a booking is confirmed. Chefs can report unsafe homes and cancel without penalty.
Kitchen readiness
Customers complete a readiness checklist for stove, fridge space, cookware, knives, containers, pets, parking, and access notes.
Allergen disclosure
Menu packages must include allergen disclosures. Customers must acknowledge hard allergens before booking.
Payment protection
Groceries, labor, tips, and bonuses are tracked separately. Grocery deposits and labor capture follow the booking state machine.
Incident response
Safety incidents create admin-visible review tasks and booking events so support can investigate with an audit trail.
Dispute resolution
Customers and chefs can open support cases for refunds, receipt disputes, unsafe homes, no-shows, and service issues.
Review integrity
Reviews are tied to bookings and can be hidden or flagged when support determines they violate marketplace policy.
Chef-facing protections
- Customer street address hidden until booking confirmation
- Unsafe-home reporting with no-penalty cancellation
- Arrival/departure and evidence notes in booking events
- Support request path during an appointment
- Clear policy coverage for pets, harassment, weapons, unsafe kitchens, and off-platform payments
Customer-facing protections
- Verified chef profile and public verification badges
- Food-safety certificate display without private document exposure
- Menu allergen disclosure and hard-allergen acknowledgement
- Transparent grocery deposit, receipt reconciliation, labor, tip, and bonus accounting
- Cancellation policy, support, refund, and incident-report flows
Admin tools
- Review chef applications and request more documents
- Review customer complaints and safety incidents
- Suspend chef or customer accounts
- Force refunds and review receipt disputes
- Audit booking events, support cases, payouts, and incident tasks
Plain-language disclaimers
These are intentionally direct because trust is weaker when the important parts are hidden in polished copy.
Cooking happens in the customer's home unless a booking explicitly says otherwise.
Local food, labor, insurance, and private-chef rules may vary by market.
Chefs may be independent providers unless a different written model applies.
Meal Prep Direct does not claim all chefs are licensed unless verified data supports that exact claim.
Meal Prep Direct does not claim meals are allergy-safe.
Meal Prep Direct does not claim medical, nutrition, weight-loss, or disease-treatment outcomes.
Customers must disclose allergies and hard dietary restrictions before booking.
Chefs must disclose known allergens in menu packages.
Groceries are separate from labor, and tips or bonuses are separate from both.
Public policy pages
These pages explain the actual in-home prep model: groceries are separate from labor, allergen disclosure is required, local rules vary, and chefs may be independent providers unless a different written model applies.
Booking event audit trail
Important booking actions create events: quote creation, grocery deposit payment, chef acceptance, receipt upload, grocery reconciliation, labor capture, disputes, incidents, and unsafe-home cancellation. This gives customers, cooks, support, and admins a shared record instead of a messy text-message argument.