Custom meals and meal components: let customers build their own
Some customers want the chicken with rice. Others want double chicken, no rice, extra greens. Custom meals let them build exactly that, while your kitchen still gets clean totals to cook from.
A custom meal is a meal that customers put together from meal components: the proteins, bases, veggies and sauces you offer, each in the portion sizes you choose.
Turning it on
Custom meals use the Meal Components feature, listed on the Features page. Your site's custom meal categories and component categories (for example Protein, Base, Veggie, Sauce) are set up with you when the feature goes on.
Step 1: create your components
Go to Meals > Meal Components and click New Component. Pick the Category, enter the Description, and click Add & Edit. Each component has:
- Category: which component category it sits in, such as Protein.
- Description: what the customer sees.
- Active: whether it is offered.
- Base Component and Optional: whether it is part of the base meal, and whether the customer may leave it out.
- Price: added to the meal price when the customer picks it. Use 0 for included items.
- Portion Options: click Add portion for each size you offer, each with its own price, and mark one Default Selection. "4 oz, 6 oz (+$2), 8 oz (+$4)" is three portion options.
- Ingredient, or a Linked Recipe with a Recipe Multiplier: links the component to what you cook, for the grocery list and for nutrition.
- Hide from totals: leave it off the prep totals, for garnishes you do not count.
- Sort row: the order it shows in its category.
Step 2: set up the custom meal
Create a meal in one of your custom meal categories, as in How to create new meals. Its edit page then has a Components section:
- Visible Component Categories: which categories the customer can pick from for this meal.
- Required Component Categories: which ones the customer must pick before adding it to the cart.
- Default Component: a starting selection, on sites that use it.
- Group by Category in Reports: groups this meal's components by category on the reports.
With the Preset Meal Builder feature, the same page has a Preset Meal Builder: pick a component and portion for each category to sell a ready-made combination, such as a "Classic Bowl", that still cooks from the same components.
Step 3: add it to the menu
Add the custom meal to a menu like any other meal. See How to create a new menu.
What the customer sees
On the order page, the custom meal opens a builder. The customer picks from each visible category, chooses portions, and watches the price update as they go. A required category must be filled before the meal goes in the cart.
Nutrition that follows the choices
Turn on Use Dynamic Macros on the meal, and the nutrition facts update with every component and portion the customer picks. See How to configure dynamic macros for custom meals.
In the kitchen
The Totals Report counts every component and every combination, so you know exactly how many 6 oz chicken portions to cook. Components linked to ingredients or recipes flow into the Grocery List Report. See Your reports: a tour of the Reports page.
Keywords: build your own, bowl builder, mix and match
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