Skips, pauses and eating patterns

Updated October 31, 2026

A Sahen pack is counted in eating days, not calendar weeks. That is what lets customers skip a day, pause for a trip or change their routine without losing anything they paid for. This guide explains the rules your team and your customers work with.

Eating pattern and delivery frequency

Every pack has two weekly settings:

Eating pattern: the weekdays the customer eats, for example Sunday to Thursday.
Delivery frequency: the weekdays a physical drop arrives. By default there is one drop per eating day. A customer can instead receive, say, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in one Sunday bag.

You set the limits in your kitchen settings: which weekdays you offer, the minimum days per week, and the most eating days one drop may carry. Every meal in a multi-day drop is picked from the menu of the delivery date.

The days a customer actually receives are the days that are both in their eating pattern and open on your service calendar.

Kitchen closures

The service calendar is where you mark days the kitchen does not cook, such as public holidays. A closed day is never delivered and never uses a credit. Any pack that would have eaten on that day simply ends one eating day later.

What a skip does

A customer, or your team, can skip a whole eating day before its daily cutoff. A skip:

Removes that day from delivery.
Keeps the meal credit. Nothing is used.
Adds a replacement eating day at the end of the pack, so the end date moves later.

There is no skipping of single courses. A day is eaten in full or skipped in full.

Pauses

A pause holds the remaining days while the customer is away. They choose a start date and a resume date. During the pause nothing is delivered and no credits are used. From the resume date, delivery picks up again on the next eating day the kitchen is open, and the end date has moved out by the paused days.

A pause with a future start date shows on the customer's home screen straight away, but the pack only becomes Paused when that date arrives. Your team can also end a pause from the pack's options in the console with Resume pack.

The cutoff rule: only days after the next cutoff can change

Skips, pauses and changes to the pattern or frequency apply only to days after the next cutoff. Once a day is past its cutoff, its picks are locked, its credit is used and the kitchen is cooking for it, so it can no longer be skipped or moved. In the console, days past cutoff are not offered for skip or move.

The remaining day count never changes

Whatever the customer changes, the number of eating days they bought stays the same. Skips, pauses, closures and pattern changes only move days around the calendar. A customer with 12 days left still has 12 days left after switching from five days a week to three; the pack simply lasts longer.

Each change is saved as one step: either the whole new schedule takes effect, or nothing changes. A half-applied schedule cannot happen, even if two changes arrive at the same moment.

What the customer sees in the app

In the customer app, the customer can:

See days left, the next delivery and a countdown to the next cutoff on the home screen.
Skip whole eating days.
Pause with a start and resume date, and see an upcoming pause on the home screen.
Change their eating pattern and delivery frequency for days after the next cutoff.

If a change means more physical drops than the pack was quoted for, Sahen issues a delivery top-up invoice for the extra drops. See payments and invoices.

When changes are blocked

Unpaid packs do not deliver. At each cutoff their days slide forward to the next available eating day until payment is confirmed.
Suspended kitchens cannot accept skips, pauses or pattern changes. Customers can still pick meals for days already scheduled.

Tips for your team

Mark public holidays on the service calendar early, so customers see the right end date before they plan around it.
When a customer asks why their end date moved, check their skips, pauses and the closures in that period. The day count itself will not have changed.
If a customer needs a day changed that is already past cutoff, it cannot be skipped. The kitchen can still cancel that delivery, which returns the credit and adds a replacement day. See deliveries, zones and drivers.