Pre-ordering school meals: how it works

How a menu week works

The canteen plans its menu a week at a time and publishes it in the app. You can order from this week's menu and next week's, for the days still open.

Each day shows its menu items and their prices. Some are made in limited numbers, so the app shows how many are left, or that an item has sold out. Days with no school, or no menu yet, cannot be ordered.

If more than one counter at the school takes pre-orders, you see each counter's menu. If your child's grade has more than one collection break, you choose the break the bag is for.

Ordering before the cut-off

1. Pick your child and a day. Choose what they will eat from that day's menu and add it to the cart.
2. Repeat it if you like. Copy the same choice to other open days that week, or to another of your children.
3. Review and pay. One payment from the family wallet covers every bag in the cart.

Each canteen sets its own cut-off: the evening before the service day, or early that morning. The app shows it on every day as "Order by". After the cut-off, ordering for that day closes and the bags already ordered are locked.

At the cut-off the kitchen gets its production list, so the canteen makes what was ordered.

Paying and cancelling

Pre-orders are paid from the family wallet when you place them, never from your child's pocket, so the pocket money stays for their own purchases. If the wallet is short, the app opens Top up with the missing amount filled in, then brings you back to your cart.

Until the cut-off you can change a bag or cancel it. A change takes the difference from the family wallet or returns it there, and the bag keeps its code. A cancellation returns the whole amount.

After the cut-off a bag is locked, and there is no refund for food your child decides not to take. Money comes back only when the canteen cannot provide something: an item the kitchen could not make is taken off the bag at the counter and refunded to the family wallet.

Read next: Managing your child's school pocket money

Collecting the bag at the break

Every bag has its own code, like A17, which you see in the app. At the collection break your child goes to the counter and taps their tag or wristband. The cashier sees the bags waiting for them and marks them collected.

Without the tag, the cashier finds the bag by its code, your child's name or class. If your child buys something extra at the same time, it is paid from their pocket like any other purchase.

The app shows when the bag is collected. A bag nobody collects by the end of the day is marked not collected, and as its cut-off has passed, it is not refunded.

If the school closes that day

When the school marks a day as closed in its calendar on STUTAP, every bag still waiting for that day is cancelled and the full amount goes back to the family wallet automatically, even after the cut-off. The day then shows as a holiday on the menu.

The canteen can also refund a bag, or part of one, that it cannot serve, and a canteen that stops taking pre-orders refunds every bag whose cut-off has not passed. Either way the money goes back to the family wallet, and the refund shows in the app.