One App From the Production Kitchen to the Client's Door

Production starts at five in the morning, the first van leaves at eight, and by noon the lids come off at thirty different client sites. One wrong number anywhere in that chain and you either cook too much or come up short. Meanwhile the client contact sends menu changes over WhatsApp, the driver confirms delivery by phone, and at month-end accounting calculates portion counts from guesswork rather than from what actually went onto plates.

How many separate apps does this need?

  • 01

    Employee and Subscriber Mobile App (iOS + Android)

    Employees see the weekly menu and pick or cancel days up to the cut-off time; allergen and calorie information, special diet requests and QR-code canteen entry all live on the same screen.

  • 02

    Dispatch and Driver App

    Vehicle route, per-site container and portion list, departure and arrival temperature records, plus signature and photo capture for the delivery receipt; it works offline where there is no signal and uploads the queue once coverage returns.

  • 03

    Kitchen and Production Panel (tablet)

    Recipe scaling based on confirmed order counts, per-batch production lists, cooking and serving temperature checkpoints, retention sample labels and storage records, all entered right on the production line.

  • 04

    Admin Web Panel

    Client contracts and portion prices, menu cycle planning, plate cost, waste reports, monthly bulk e-Fatura (Turkey's mandatory e-invoicing system) issuing and meal-card reconciliation, managed from a single panel.

What the app includes

  • Four-week menu cycle built once, copied per client site
  • Recipe scaling per cooking kettle with an ingredient issue list
  • Separate production list for diabetic, gluten-free and vegetarian meals
  • Reference-sample label with a 72-hour retention countdown
  • Gastronorm container count and empty-container return tracking
  • Vehicle loading checklist with container counts per client site
  • Guest-meal request routed to the client contact for approval
  • QR check-in at the canteen locking one meal per person per day
  • Post-service rating collected per dish, not per day
  • Leftover and waste entry recorded straight from the serving line
  • Contract-level portion pricing with a price-change effective date
  • Separate planning for Ramadan iftar and special-occasion menus

State of the sector

Price alone no longer decides corporate catering tenders; client contacts now expect employees to see the menu on their phones, make a selection, and receive a month-end summary they can approve without dispute. Providers who offer that are winning contract renewals. In operations running without an app, order counts scatter across WhatsApp groups, production is based on guesswork, and waste comes straight out of profit. On the individual meal-plan side, customers expect to choose a weekly package and pay from their phone; a business taking orders by telephone cannot serve that demand at scale. On the inspection side, showing a photograph of a paper logbook is an increasingly hard answer when digital records are requested.

Metrics that matter here

  • Portion forecast variance (produced vs. consumed) — When the real selection count locked at the cut-off time feeds production, you work from data rather than estimates, and both waste and shortfalls drop.
  • Food cost per plate — Once recipes, current purchase prices and actual portion counts are linked, the cost of every menu is visible daily and loss-making menus get weeded out.
  • Share of deliveries made within the service window — The arrival time logged in the driver app shows which client and which route is running late, so routes and departure times can be corrected accordingly.
  • Client contract renewal rate — Transparent summaries plus temperature and delivery records become evidence in contract negotiations; disputes drop and the renewal decision gets easier.

Common mistakes in this sector

  • Treating the cut-off time as a suggestion rather than a rule If selections can still change after the deadline, the kitchen goes back to producing on guesswork and the app's one concrete benefit disappears. The cut-off must be a hard lock in the system, with anything later routed into a separate additional-request flow.
  • Typing allergen text into the menu by hand An allergen note written independently of the recipe never gets updated when a supplier or ingredient changes, and stays live as false information. Allergens must flow automatically from the ingredient record to the recipe and on to the menu.
  • Assuming the driver app is always online Connectivity drops in industrial estates and basement canteens; in a design that depends on the internet, delivery receipts cannot be captured and gaps appear in the record. Offline capture and later sync have to be planned from the start.
  • Treating diet and allergy information as ordinary data An employee's dietary requests and allergies are health data; if they show up unnecessarily on shared lists or on the client contact's screen, that becomes a serious compliance problem. Access rights must be narrowed and consent records kept.

Regulation and compliance

A catering business holds a business registration certificate from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and is obliged under food hygiene regulations to keep temperature control and retention sample storage records; the app makes those records timestamped and auditable. Allergen disclosure is expected under the Turkish Food Codex, and the menu screen is what carries it. Employees' dietary and allergy details are special-category health data under KVKK (Turkey's data protection law, aligned with GDPR): explicit consent, narrow access rights and separate storage are required. Corporate invoices are issued as e-Fatura and individual sales as e-Arşiv.

The real challenges in this sector

  • Locking the cut-off time and freezing production counts

    The kitchen needs an exact count before morning production begins. The app defines a cut-off time per client site; once it passes, selections lock and the production list is generated instantly. Anything that arrives after the cut-off drops into a separate “additional request” queue and never disrupts the production plan. For employees who make no selection, the default behaviour set out in the client contract (count automatically / do not count) is written into the system as a rule.

  • Keeping delivery records intact when the van has no signal

    Signal drops in industrial estates, on construction sites and in basement canteens. The driver app downloads the route, container list and receipt form to the device each morning; signature, photo and temperature data are written to a local database and synced in order once coverage returns. Every receipt is sent with a unique identifier so the same delivery is never processed twice.

  • Documenting the temperature chain

    Hot food must stay above a set temperature until service and chilled products below it. The app requests a reading after cooking, at vehicle loading and on delivery at the client site; with a Bluetooth probe the value is read automatically, otherwise it is entered manually and the timestamp is locked. Any out-of-threshold reading immediately notifies the production manager and that batch stays flagged in the report.

  • Tying allergens and recipe versions to the menu

    When a supplier changes, the composition of the same dish changes with it; if the allergen list shown to employees goes stale, that creates real risk. Every recipe is versioned, and the allergen tags on the ingredient record flow automatically into the recipe and from there onto that day's menu card. Looking back at any past day shows exactly which recipe version was served on that date.

  • Per-client pricing and monthly reconciliation

    Every client has different portion prices, a different split between breakfast, lunch and dinner, and different rules for guest meals and cancellations. The system holds the contract as a set of rules and produces a per-client summary at month-end; the summary goes to the client contact for approval, and the approved amount is passed to the e-invoicing integrator. Individual sales paid by meal card are settled in a separate account.

Required integrations

  • Monthly bulk invoicing per client via an e-Fatura / e-Arşiv (Turkey's mandatory e-invoicing system) integrator connected to GİB (Turkish Revenue Administration)
  • Meal-card providers: POS and reconciliation transfers for Multinet, Sodexo, Setcard and Ticket
  • Recurring collection from individual meal-plan subscriptions via iyzico or PayTR (Turkish payment providers)
  • Stock, cost and account-ledger transfers to Logo, Mikro or Netsis pre-accounting software
  • Automatic readings from Bluetooth temperature probes and data loggers
  • Canteen entry verification and QR scanning through client turnstile / access-card systems

Who this page is for

  • Regional contract caterer serving company canteens

    Priority is the order cut-off, a production list per client site and the monthly statement. Dispatch and temperature logging can wait for phase two; the first goal is cutting waste and invoice disputes at the same time.

  • Newly founded individual meal-subscription or diet-food business

    Instead of corporate contracts, what matters is weekly package sales, address and delivery window, recurring card payments and a calorie-allergen card per dish. The kitchen panel stays lean; growth depends on app store visibility.

  • Single-kitchen operator feeding schools, dormitories or a hospital

    Counts are relatively stable, so meal choice stays light; the weight sits on temperature logs, reference samples, separating diet menus and being able to report historical records when inspected.

A phased plan that splits the budget

  1. 1

    Phase 1 — Meal choice, order cut-off and production list 5-7 hafta

    Delivers the employee app (iOS and Android), the weekly menu cycle, a per-site order cut-off and a production list that locks when the cut-off passes. It stands alone: the kitchen reads tomorrow's count from a screen instead of guessing. Waste drops before any dispatch or accounting work exists, which is why it comes first.

  2. 2

    Phase 2 — Dispatch, temperature records and delivery receipts 4-6 hafta

    Adds the driver app, routes with container lists, an offline-capable delivery receipt with signature and photo, and temperature checkpoints at cooking, loading and hand-over. Because portion counts were made reliable in Phase 1, container counts and routes now rest on real data, and the records used in audits and contract talks start accumulating here.

  3. 3

    Phase 3 — Contracts, monthly statements and integrations 4-6 hafta

    Brings in client contracts and portion prices, the monthly statement with an approval screen for the client contact, e-Fatura/e-Arşiv transfer (Turkey's mandatory e-invoicing and e-archive system), meal-card reconciliation, and stock and cost transfer to the existing bookkeeping software. It comes last because the proof of what to invoice is created in the first two phases; reconciliation built on shaky source data is wasted effort.

Typical scope and timeline

Typical scope: employee menu selection app (iOS and Android), driver dispatch app, kitchen production screen and admin web panel. On top of that come client contracts and portion pricing, the recipe-to-cost link, temperature and retention sample records, monthly summaries and e-invoice transfers. Meal-card and pre-accounting integrations plus app store release are planned within the same scope.

Estimated timeline: 10-16 weeks

Off-the-shelf or custom build?

Topic Off-the-shelf Custom build
Cut-off time and default rules Off-the-shelf products usually offer one global cut-off and one behaviour; a different hour and a different rule for non-responders per client site is rarely configurable. The rule is defined per contract: hour, default behaviour, a post-cut-off extra-request queue and exception days are each set separately.
Connecting to existing bookkeeping software Common products may ship ready-made transfers to widely used Turkish bookkeeping software such as Logo or Mikro, which genuinely saves time; the scope of that transfer is fixed, though, and missing fields stay missing. The transfer is written against your own chart of accounts and cost breakdown; if the software exposes no interface, a bridging layer is built, which does add time and cost.
Monthly subscription or one-off investment The monthly fee starts low and you can use it on day one; as client sites and users grow, however, the fee grows with them and shows up as a cost per portion. Development is paid up front, leaving hosting and maintenance; the licence bill does not grow as users are added. Heavier in the short term, more predictable over years.
Ownership and portability of records Temperature logs, delivery receipts and monthly statements sit in the vendor's system; most products offer an export, but access to history after the contract ends depends on the vendor. The database and files live on your own server or cloud account; historical records requested in an inspection, and the app store accounts, are directly yours.

Sector glossary

Order cut-off
The moment tomorrow's portion count is frozen. In catering it is calculated backwards from when the kitchen starts cooking and differs per client site; anything arriving later goes into an extra-request queue, not the production list.
Reference sample (retained food sample)
A labelled portion of every dish served, kept refrigerated for a set period. If a complaint or inspection follows, it is the evidence of what was actually served; the label, retention start and disposal time must all be recorded.
Tabldot (fixed daily menu)
The fixed daily set — soup, main, side — served as one menu. Sold as a contracted portion to companies and as a weekly package to individuals; both come out of the same kitchen, but pricing and collection flows differ.
İcmal (monthly consolidated statement)
The day-by-day breakdown and total of portions delivered to one client over a month. It goes to the client contact for approval before invoicing; showing who actively chose and who fell back to the default settles most disputes at the source.
GN pan (gastronorm container)
Standard-sized stainless serving containers. Dispatch is planned in GN pan counts: how many went to which site and how many came back empty. Lost pans are a direct cost, so return tracking belongs in the delivery receipt.

Frequently asked questions

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