Vraic - Meal Plan Subscription and Kitchen Operations Platform
Prepared-Meal Subscriptions for a Channel Islands Kitchen
Designed and built a clickable subscription and operations platform for a Guernsey kitchen that delivers chilled, ready-to-heat meals to subscribers in Guernsey and Jersey: weekly selections with a clear cut-off, self-service skip, pause and cancel, a production plan built from confirmed choices, and a packing station that refuses any meal containing an ingredient the subscriber avoids.
Most of our work is under NDA. Per agreement, we can share the work but not the company details - all names and identifying information shown here have been changed.
Impact
Dashboard, subscribers with a quick view panel, subscriber detail with 6 tabs and skip, pause, change plan, credit and cancel actions, the production plan and the packing station.
Every recipe carries the 14 allergens with cereal and nut types named. The pick list shows an Avoids banner, and the scan check refuses a meal with an avoided ingredient or the wrong meal.
Until cut-off the production plan is a forecast marked not final. The week then locks into portions per island, a 2% buffer (3% for 3-day shelf life), batches and use-by dates.
16 on Guernsey and 8 on Jersey, 16 recipes on 4 kitchen stations, 18 ingredients from 6 suppliers and 3 packing waves, with Jersey prices including 5% GST.
The Problem
Havelet Table Co. grew from a market stall to about 1,400 weekly subscribers on a storefront plugin, a spreadsheet and a WhatsApp group. Meal choices arrived after ingredients were ordered, allergen information was retyped from a recipe binder onto labels by hand, cancelling meant emailing the founder, Jersey boxes were priced without GST until an adviser flagged it, and nobody could see which meals customers liked or whether a van had stayed cold.
Our Solution
Vraic runs the whole week in one place: subscribers choose meals before a fixed cut-off, staff can skip, pause, change or cancel a plan in a few clicks with every action logged, the kitchen turns locked selections into recipe counts, batches and use-by dates, and packers scan every meal into its box against the subscriber's avoid list.
The Challenge: A Weekly Cycle With No Room for Error
A chilled-meal subscription repeats the same cycle every week: menu, selections, cut-off, billing, cooking, packing and delivery across two islands. Each step depends on the one before, and allergens, labels, tax and temperatures all have rules of their own.
Choices Arriving Too Late
Selections came in after the kitchen had ordered ingredients, so some recipes were over-produced and others ran out. The kitchen needed a fixed cut-off, a live forecast before it and a locked plan after it.
Allergen Data Retyped by Hand
Following the UK approach based on assimilated Regulation (EU) 1169/2011, the 14 allergens must be declared before purchase and again on the label. Retyping them from a binder left room for label errors, and nothing checked a packed box against what its subscriber avoids.
Two Islands, Two Sets of Rules
Guernsey and Jersey each have their own data protection law and regulator, and Jersey charges 5% GST while Guernsey has no sales tax. Prices, privacy notices and delivery days all depend on the island.
Health Data in an Avoid List
Allergy and intolerance details can reveal health information, which both data protection laws generally treat as special category data. The product has to ask only for ingredients to avoid, record explicit consent and never ask about medical conditions.
Our Approach: From the Weekly Cycle to a Clickable Platform
Spec and Rules Research
Mapped 10 roles, 42 screens (28 staff, 12 subscriber and 2 driver screens) and the data model for subscribers, consents, plans, subscriptions, recipes, claims, menu weeks, orders, charges, production plans, batches, pack events, delivery runs, temperature readings, care cases and ratings. Wrote down the rules the design follows: Guernsey and Jersey data protection, allergen and label rules, nutrition and health claims, a 0 to 5 °C cold chain, Jersey GST and the client's fair-cancellation policy.
Clickable Demo on a Production UI Kit
Built 5 key screens on a production dashboard kit: the dashboard with cut-off countdown, selection progress, week timeline, churn watch and meal ratings, the subscriber list and detail with action modals logged to Activity, the production plan with lock week, buffer changes, batch codes, batch temperature checks and an allergen-grouped station schedule, and the packing station with waves, pick lists and scan checks. All actions run on local state.
What a Production Build Adds
Recurring billing through Stripe Billing or Adyen, Direct Debit through GoCardless, GY and JE address lookup, Nutritics for nutrition and allergens, route planning, van and cool box temperature loggers, Zebra label printers, Postmark and Twilio messages and a Xero export. Staff roles, subscriber sign-in by one-time code, an append-only audit log, and the remaining screens: recipes, menus, labels, delivery runs, cold chain, billing, care, reports, settings, the subscriber app and the driver app.
Why It Works: The Week Is the Product
One Week in Focus Everywhere
The sidebar week switcher shows the week and its status, and every screen counts down to cut-off. The dashboard follows the week from menu published to cut-off, billing run, production, packing and delivery, with the items that need attention linked.
Avoid Lists Travel With the Box
A subscriber's avoided ingredients are shown with their consent date and a note that the view is logged. At the packing bench the same list becomes an Avoids banner, and a meal that contains one of them cannot be scanned into the box.
Production Planned From Real Choices
Recipe counts are split by island, the buffer is client policy and any change needs a reason, batch codes are generated when a batch starts, and recorded cooking and chilling temperatures are checked against the critical limits.
Changes Without Emailing the Founder
Skip, pause, change plan, add credit and cancel each open a short modal and are logged with the staff member's name. In the spec, subscribers can cancel online up to the weekly cut-off in no more steps than signing up, with no call or email.
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Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
Contact Us
Locations
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
© 2026 - Copyright. All Rights reserved Oceanlab