Glossary

A meal-subscription kitchen is a food business that sells prepaid plans of ready meals and delivers them to subscribers on a recurring schedule. Customers commit to a number of eating days up front, choose their meals from a published menu, and the kitchen cooks to a known count instead of guessing demand.

Sahen is an operating system built for these kitchens. It runs one loop: the kitchen publishes a menu, customers pick, the daily cutoff freezes the orders, and the kitchen gets a production sheet while drivers get a manifest. Start with Getting started.

A meal prep business cooks portioned, ready-to-eat meals in batches and sells them to customers who want planned, consistent eating. Many sell weekly or monthly plans built around a diet or macro target, which makes them a kind of meal-subscription kitchen.

In Sahen, a meal prep business sells packages for a chosen number of days, publishes a weekly menu, and lets the daily cutoff turn choices into exact cooking quantities. Meals carry components and macros so customers see what they eat.

A cloud kitchen is a commercial kitchen with no dining room that prepares food only for delivery or pickup. Without a storefront, it depends on its ordering channels and delivery operation, so software usually replaces the front of house.

Many kitchens that run on Sahen are cloud kitchens. Customers order through the kitchen's own white-label app or web store, and the kitchen plans delivery zones, drivers and trips from the console. See Deliveries, zones and drivers.

A subscriber is a customer who has paid in advance for a recurring meal plan and receives meals on a schedule.

In Sahen, a subscriber is a customer with an open pack: a package bought for a set number of eating days. They pick meals in the kitchen's app before each cutoff, and can skip days or pause when the kitchen allows. Kitchens manage them under Customers and support.

An eating day is a calendar day on which a subscriber is scheduled to eat the kitchen's meals.

In Sahen, eating days are where the customer's weekly eating pattern meets the days the kitchen operates. Each eating day uses one meal credit, however many courses it has, and the pack ends after its last purchased eating day. Skips, pauses and kitchen closures push that end date later.

Example: a 20-day pack on a Sunday–Thursday pattern lasts four weeks.

A delivery date, or drop, is a day on which a physical delivery reaches the customer, possibly carrying meals for more than one eating day.

In Sahen, every eating day is assigned to the latest drop at or before it. By default there is one drop per eating day; a kitchen can let customers take fewer drops, each carrying several days. Cutoff, production and driver manifests all run per delivery date. See Daily cutoff.

A weekly eating pattern is the set of weekdays on which a subscriber wants to receive meals, repeated every week.

In Sahen, the customer chooses their pattern at checkout, for example Sunday to Thursday. The pattern decides which dates become eating days and therefore when the pack ends. Customers can change it later where the kitchen allows; see Skips, pauses and patterns.

Delivery frequency is how often a subscriber receives a physical delivery, independent of how many days they eat.

In Sahen, delivery frequency is the set of drop days, always a subset of the customer's eating days. It defaults to one drop per eating day; fewer drops mean each delivery carries meals for the days until the next one. Delivery charges are quoted per drop when the pack is bought. See Deliveries, zones and drivers.

A daily cutoff is the deadline after which a kitchen stops accepting meal choices and changes for a given delivery date. Cutoff turns open choices into a fixed order list, so the kitchen can buy, cook and pack for an exact count.

In Sahen, the kitchen sets the cutoff time and how many days before delivery it falls. At cutoff the system freezes every order for that date, applies default picks for customers who did not choose, and debits one meal credit per eating day through the credit ledger. Cutoff is idempotent: running it twice for the same date changes nothing. See Daily cutoff.

Example: with an 18:00 cutoff the day before, Tuesday's meals lock on Monday at 18:00 kitchen time.

A frozen order is a customer's meal order for a date that can no longer be changed because the cutoff has passed.

In Sahen, orders freeze at the daily cutoff. The frozen set is the single source for the production sheet and the driver manifest, so the kitchen cooks exactly what was ordered. See Daily cutoff.

A default pick is the meal a kitchen assigns automatically to a subscriber who did not choose before the cutoff.

In Sahen, defaults are applied at the daily cutoff for anyone who has not picked, from meals on that day's menu that fit the customer's program and package. Nobody misses a meal because they forgot to choose. See Weekly menu.

A production sheet is the kitchen's list of how many of each meal to cook for a service date.

In Sahen, the production sheet is built from frozen orders after the cutoff and counts by meal across every program, so diets never split the cooking run. The kitchen can print it along with 80mm bag receipts. See Production sheet and printing.

A meal component is one measured part of a plate, such as a protein, a starch or a sauce, with its own amount and nutrition values.

In Sahen, each meal is built from components with an amount in grams or millilitres and their macros; the meal's totals come from its components. A meal needs at least one component, a photo, and a meal type before it can be activated, plus a program unless its meal type is program-agnostic. See Meals and macros.

Macros, short for macronutrients, are the protein, carbohydrate and fat in a meal, usually shown with its calories.

In Sahen, macros come from each meal's components and are shown to customers in the app next to the meal, as calories plus protein, carbs and fat. See Meals and macros.

Example: 620 kcal · P 30 g · C 45 g · F 12 g.

A diet program is a named eating approach, such as high protein or keto, that decides which meals a subscriber can be served.

In Sahen, every meal is tagged with the programs it fits, and a customer only ever sees meals for their own program. A program can carry a price modifier on top of the package price. Switching a pack to another program is done by the kitchen and reprices the remaining days. See Packages, programs and credits.

A package is a meal plan product that defines what a subscriber receives each day and what it costs per day.

In Sahen, a package lists its daily courses (for example one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner), a price per day, and the programs it allows. The customer picks a package and a duration; the price is the per-day price times the days, with discounts for longer durations. See Packages, programs and credits.

A meal credit is a prepaid unit of a meal plan that is used up as the subscriber receives service.

In Sahen, one credit is one day of service, not one meal or one delivery: a four-course day uses one credit. Credits are debited at the daily cutoff, and customers see their balance as days left. Skipping a whole eating day costs nothing. See Packages, programs and credits.

A credit pack is a prepaid bundle of meal credits that a customer buys up front and uses down over time.

In Sahen, a pack is a package bought for a chosen duration, such as 10 or 20 days, and it is also the customer's subscription and its invoice. A customer has one open pack at a time and must finish or cancel it before buying another. The pack closes on its own once every day is delivered and paid. See Packages, programs and credits.

A credit ledger is an append-only record of every credit added to or taken from a customer's balance. Because entries are never edited, the balance is always the sum of the history and every change can be explained.

In Sahen, balances are never stored as a single editable number. Purchases, cutoff debits, cancellation refunds and pack-cancel clawbacks each add a ledger entry, so the kitchen can always answer why a customer has seven days left. See Packages, programs and credits.

A skip is a subscriber's choice not to receive meals on a scheduled eating day, without losing that day from their plan.

In Sahen, a customer can skip a whole eating day before its cutoff. No credit is used, and the pack's end date moves out by one eating day. There is no skipping of single courses. See Skips, pauses and patterns.

A pause is a temporary stop in a meal subscription that keeps the remaining days for later.

In Sahen, a pause has a start date and a resume-on date, both set together. The uneaten days are held, and service restarts on the first eligible eating day from the resume date, pushing the pack's end date out. See Skips, pauses and patterns.

Example: a customer travelling for a week pauses from the 3rd and resumes on the 10th.

A coverage check confirms that a menu offers at least one suitable meal for every diet and course that customers are owed.

In Sahen, publishing a menu day is blocked until, for every active program and every meal type required by a package that allows it, at least one eligible meal is on the menu. Meal types still owed by open packs count too, so no subscriber faces an empty choice. See Weekly menu.

Menu depth is how many meal options a menu offers for each course on a given day.

In Sahen, the menu is a flat pool of meals per day, plus an optional daily menu of meals offered every day. The coverage check guarantees at least one option per program and course; adding more meals gives customers real choice. See Weekly menu.

A delivery zone is a geographic area a kitchen delivers to, often with its own delivery charge.

In Sahen, the kitchen defines its zones and a per-drop rate for each, which may be free. A customer's address falls in a zone, and the delivery charge is fixed for the pack when it is bought. Zones also help group stops into driver trips. See Deliveries, zones and drivers.

A driver manifest is the list of stops, customers and bags a driver must deliver on a route.

In Sahen, manifests are built from frozen orders after the cutoff, so drivers carry exactly what was ordered. Drivers see their trips and stops in the driver app, and can record delivery and any cash collected. See Deliveries, zones and drivers.

A bag receipt is a printed slip packed with a delivery that lists what the bag contains and who it is for.

In Sahen, the kitchen prints 80mm bag receipts alongside the production sheet, so each bag shows its customer and meals. The receipt carries a QR code tied to that delivery. See Production sheet and printing.

A white-label app is an app built by one company that a business offers to its customers under its own name, logo and colours.

In Sahen, the customer app and the web subscription page are plan features (see pricing); both are themed with the kitchen's own logo and colours, and customers use them to subscribe, pick meals, skip and pause. A dedicated app store listing under the kitchen's name is available as a paid add-on. See Customer app and white label.

Cash on delivery is a payment method where the customer pays in cash when the order is handed over.

In Sahen, a kitchen can accept cash on first delivery for a pack: the first qualifying drop goes out before payment and the driver collects the cash at the door. Driver cash is tracked until it is handed back to the kitchen. Sahen has no live card gateway; see Payments and invoices.

A payment reference is a code that links a bank or wallet transfer to the order or invoice it pays for.

In Sahen, a customer paying by transfer, such as CliQ in Jordan, quotes the reference shown at checkout and can upload proof of the transfer. The kitchen matches the reference and confirms the payment, which activates the pack. See Payments and invoices.

An active subscription is a paid meal plan that is currently scheduled to receive meals.

In Sahen, a pack becomes active once its payment is confirmed; only active packs are frozen into orders at cutoff. An unpaid pack stays a draft, and its days slide forward until it is paid. Cash on first delivery is the exception for the first drop. See Payments and invoices.