Can I sell meal prep on DoorDash or Uber Eats?

Yes, as a licensed food business. None of the three publishes a rule about meal prep by name, so what decides it is the same thing that decides it for any kitchen: the permit, and the address on it.

Uber is the most explicit about what the permit has to be. Its licensing article gives the same sentence for stores with a permanent location and for virtual kitchens:

Two details in that article matter to a new business. Uber says it matches your business name and address against government licensing databases at sign-up, and asks for the license itself when it cannot. And it names the documents that do not count: "Food handler certifications, for example, confirm the completion of a food safety course but do not independently authorize a store to operate in most jurisdictions." Tax documents and occupancy permits are on the same list.

DoorDash's sign-up guide asks for a legal business name, an EIN, the owner's name and date of birth, and bank details. It does not mention the kitchen. That rule sits in its virtual brand requirements, which say brands must "operate out of a licensed commercial kitchen". If you cook at home, the home kitchen guide covers what that rule and state law leave open.

DoorDash does not say. Its merchant sign-up form asks for a business type first, and the wording of the options is the only place I found DoorDash placing packaged meals anywhere:

DoorDash publishes no definition of which type a meal prep company belongs to, and nothing saying the choice changes how a store is reviewed. So ask its sales team before you sign up, and say plainly what you sell: chilled meals in sealed containers, cooked in a licensed kitchen, eaten later. Uber's licensing article covers three kinds of operation, permanent locations, virtual kitchens and food trucks, and meal prep is not named in it.

They can order ahead. They cannot, on anything these pages describe, subscribe. Each app publishes how a scheduled order works, and each one is a single order for a single delivery window.

That leaves two ways to use the apps: single meals for people who want one tonight, or a pack, five lunches for example, listed as one item at one price. A pack is one item to the platform, which matters for its photo, covered below.

On an ordering page they control. The weekly rhythm, order by Thursday, pick up Sunday, is a setting on these tools and not on the delivery apps.

This is the photo question only this kind of seller has. A restaurant customer gets a dish. Your customer gets a sealed container. DoorDash's rule on what a photo must represent reads:

Neither delivery app says in so many words that the container must be in the photo. ezCater, a catering marketplace, is the one that names packaging. But DoorDash's sentence points the same way: a meal styled on a dinner plate, when it arrives in a tray, is the idealized version. My reading, and it is a reading: photograph the meal in the container it ships in, lid off so the food is visible. Both apps accept a logo printed on the packaging itself.

A pack sold as one item gets one photo with every container in frame, because DoorDash allows several items in a photo only when they are sold together. Sizes are the same as for any menu item: DoorDash wants landscape 16:9 at 1400 x 800 pixels or larger, detailed in the DoorDash photo requirements guide. For your own ordering page, Square recommends at least 2000 x 2000 pixels at 1:1. The catering guide covers trays and group portions.

I started MenuPhotoLab for restaurants on the delivery apps, and a rotating meal prep menu is the same job every week: you photograph each container on your phone, and MenuPhotoLab fixes the light, color and background and prepares the shapes for your ordering page and each app. I never generate food or change the portion, because the photo has to be what your customer opens.