Meal prep software for Melbourne, Victoria.

Melbourne buys meal prep the way it buys coffee — regularly, and with opinions. Run clubs and gyms through the inner north, long office hours in the city, a strong vegetarian and vegan habit, and plenty of share houses and apartments where nobody wants the Sunday cook. They order a week at a time and they read the ingredient list. Mealforma is meal prep software that gives a Melbourne company one place to sell those plans, take the orders and see what the week is worth.

The grid looks simple until a driver has to stop in it. The little streets and laneways off Flinders and Lonsdale have nowhere to pull in, trams hold the middle of the road, and a hook turn costs a whole light cycle. Loading zones have time limits that a van with twenty boxes does not respect for long. Mealforma gives the driver the stops in order with each customer's access notes attached, and records a photo at the door so a rushed handover is still on file.

Outside the grid the city runs a long way in every direction — north up the Hume, west past Werribee, south-east towards the peninsula — and the West Gate at four o'clock decides whether the west is a route or a whole afternoon. Zones, fees, minimum orders, delivery days and cut-off times are settings you change yourself, so a kitchen in Collingwood can hold the inner north and east, then add the bayside suburbs as a second day.

The hours matter more than the weather. A lot of customers are at work until six, so evening windows and a safe place at the property carry the route, and a driver who arrives at two o'clock is wasting a trip. Customers choose this week's meals before the cut-off, skip a week, or pause while they are away, from their own account — and the kitchen list is built from the orders that are locked, so a run of skips does not leave you cooking for nobody.