Terms of Service

Who we are

MealMate is run by [Company legal name], [registered address], trade licence [trade licence no.], Digital Business ID [DBID no.] ("MealMate", "we", "us"). These terms are an agreement between you and us for using the MealMate app, the web version of the app, and mealmate.bd. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your data.

By creating an account or buying a plan, you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, please don't use MealMate.

What MealMate is, and isn't

MealMate is a platform. We run the app, take payments, manage plans, skips and credits, and give kitchens their daily counts and delivery lists.

We don't cook or deliver the food. Each kitchen on MealMate is an independent business: a home kitchen, a tiffin service or a restaurant. The kitchen prepares your meals and delivers them with its own riders. The kitchen is responsible for the food it makes. We choose the kitchens we list, check them before they join, and act on complaints, as described below.

Who can use MealMate

• You must be 18 or older. If you're under 18, a parent or guardian should create the account and buy the plan.
• You need a Bangladeshi mobile number that you control.
• During the pilot, MealMate operates in Rajshahi only, and kitchens deliver only to the areas listed in the app.

Your account

You sign in with your mobile number and a 6-digit code we send by SMS. Codes expire after 5 minutes. Keep your phone and codes to yourself: anyone who can receive SMS on your number can sign in as you. Tell us at [contact email] straight away if you lose your number or think someone else is using your account.

You're responsible for keeping your name and delivery address accurate. If you give a wrong address, the meal may not reach you, and that meal won't be refunded.

How plans work

Building a plan. You choose a kitchen, the meals you want (breakfast, lunch and/or dinner, depending on what the kitchen serves), the days of the week, the plan length, and preferences like fish or chicken, extra rice or less spicy. The app shows the full price before you pay, including any delivery fee for your area.

Plan lengths. 1 week, 2 weeks or 1 month (4 weeks). Many kitchens also offer a trial plan covering your first few delivery days (3 by default; the kitchen page shows the number). You can take a trial only once with each kitchen.

Prices are fixed when you buy. The per-meal price you pay, including extra rice and delivery, is locked for that plan. That same amount is what you get back as credit if you skip the meal.

When a plan starts. Your plan starts on the first day still open for changes. If your payment is confirmed only after a day's meal list has been finalised, we credit you for the meals you missed.

Days the kitchen is closed. Kitchens list their regular closed days, and you aren't charged for them. If a kitchen closes on a day you've paid for (because of a hartal, heavy rain, flooding, a holiday or any other reason), every affected meal is cancelled and credited to you automatically, and we tell you by SMS.

The nightly cutoff

Each kitchen has a cutoff time, shown on its page (usually 10:00 PM). Changes for a meal close at that time on the night before, Bangladesh time. At exactly the cutoff, changes are already closed: for a 10 PM cutoff, 9:59:59 PM is the last moment. At the cutoff, the next day's orders are locked and the kitchen starts preparing.

Before the cutoff you can:

• Skip a meal. Its full plan price comes back to you as credit straight away.
• Undo a skip. The meal comes back and the credit is taken back. This works only if you haven't already spent that credit.
• Pause your plan for a range of days, up to the kitchen's limit (usually 30 days). Every paused meal is credited.
• Resume early. Meals that are still open for changes come back, and their credit is taken back.

After the cutoff, you can't change that meal in the app. If you phone your kitchen, it may still agree to a change and log it for you. If it does, you're credited, we send you an SMS receipt, and the change is flagged for our review.

Meals that have already been delivered, or that you've already been compensated for through a problem report, can't be skipped or credited again.

We send a reminder by SMS about 30 minutes before your kitchen's cutoff. You can turn this off in the app. Missing a reminder doesn't extend the cutoff.

Payments

bKash. You pay through bKash's checkout. You approve the payment on bKash's own page with your wallet number, verification code and PIN. MealMate never sees your PIN. Your plan becomes active only after we've confirmed the payment directly with bKash. bKash's own terms apply to your bKash account.

Credit first. Any meal credit in your wallet is applied first, so you pay less, or nothing if your credit covers the whole plan.

If a payment fails or you cancel it, no money is taken and any credit you applied goes back to your wallet. If bKash is slow to confirm and money has left your account, your plan starts as soon as bKash confirms. If it never confirms, contact us at [contact email] with the bKash transaction ID.

MealMate holds your payment and pays your kitchen weekly, and only for meals that were delivered.

Prices are in Bangladeshi taka and include.

Renewals

Auto-renew is on by default. You can turn it off at any time in the app for each plan. A trial plan renews as a 1-week plan; other plans renew for the same length.

How renewal works. The day before your plan ends, we create the next plan with the same kitchen, meals, days and address, priced at the kitchen's current prices, and apply your credit. We remind you by SMS. If your credit covers it, it starts automatically. If not, you pay the rest with bKash in the app.

If you don't pay, the renewal waits until the cutoff before its first delivery day. After that, it's cancelled, any credit applied to it goes back to your wallet, and we tell you by SMS. You're never charged for a renewal you didn't pay for.

We don't save your bKash account or charge it without your approval.

Meal credit

• Credit is added when you skip or pause a meal before the cutoff, when a kitchen closes, when we approve a problem report as credit, and when you miss meals because a payment was confirmed late.
• Credit is used first when you buy or renew a plan.
• Credit never expires.
• Credit is meal credit, not money. It can't be withdrawn, transferred to another person, or exchanged for cash, including when you close your account. Please use it before closing your account.
• Your wallet shows every credit and every use. The history can't be edited, only added to.
• If credit is added by mistake (for example, a system error), we may correct it and will show the correction in your wallet history.

Cancellations and refunds

Cancelling a plan. There's no cash refund for cancelling a plan part-way through. Instead, you can pause it or skip the remaining meals before each cutoff, and the price of every meal comes back as credit. Turn off auto-renew to stop it renewing.

Refunds to bKash are given only for confirmed problems with a meal (see "Problems with a meal"). A refund can't be more than the meal's price, and the refunds on one plan can't add up to more than the cash you paid for it. A plan paid entirely with credit can only be compensated with credit. Refunds are sent to the bKash number you paid from within 7 working days.

Your rights under Bangladesh consumer law aren't affected by anything in these terms.

Problems with a meal

If a meal is missing, very late, wrong or has a quality problem, report it in the app from My Meals:

• When: on the meal's day or up to 2 days after.
• How: choose what went wrong, add a note and, if you can, a photo. One report per meal.
• What happens next: a MealMate team member reviews it. We aim to reply within 2 hours. If the problem is confirmed, you get up to the meal's full price back, as credit or as a refund to your bKash. If we can't confirm the problem, we'll tell you why.

The kitchen isn't paid for a meal we compensate you for. If it was already paid, the amount is taken from its next payout.

For a serious food-safety issue, such as illness you believe came from a meal, contact us at [contact email] straight away and seek medical help. You can also complain to the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority or the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection.

Food, allergies and hygiene

• Menus can change. Kitchens publish menus and main-item options, but ingredients may change based on what's available at the market. The meal you receive may differ slightly from the photo.
• Allergies. MealMate doesn't list allergens and can't guarantee that any meal is free from a particular ingredient. Home kitchens commonly use fish, shellfish, eggs, milk, wheat, nuts, mustard and sesame. If you have an allergy or dietary need, call your kitchen before you buy a plan. Don't rely on the menu text alone.
• "Hygiene verified". A kitchen with this badge has passed MealMate's check against the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority's requirements. The badge shows that this check took place. It isn't a guarantee about every meal.
• Eat promptly. Meals are cooked for the day. Eat them soon after delivery or keep them refrigerated.
• Delivery times are windows, not exact times. Traffic, weather and hartals can cause delays.

Rules for using MealMate

Please don't:

• use someone else's mobile number or account, or give false details;
• abuse, threaten or harass kitchen staff, riders or our team;
• file reports you know are false, or try to get credit you're not owed;
• try to break into, overload, copy or reverse-engineer the service, or get around the cutoff or payment checks;
• use MealMate for anything illegal.

If you do, we may refuse reports, reverse credit obtained dishonestly, or suspend or close your account.

The test app (pilot build)

During our Rajshahi pilot, the Android app is available as a test build (an APK file) from mealmate.bd/download, not from Google Play. By installing it, you understand that:

• it's a pre-release build. It may have bugs, change often, or stop working;
• you install it from outside Google Play, so your phone will show warnings. Download it only from mealmate.bd, and check the file's fingerprint (shown on the download page) if you can;
• it's provided "as is", without promises that it will be available or error-free;
• .

Your rights as a paying customer, including credits and refunds, still apply to real payments you make through the test build.

Our content and yours

The MealMate name, logo, app and website belong to [Company legal name]. You may use them only to use MealMate as intended.

Menus, photos and kitchen names belong to the kitchens or to us. When you send us a problem report or photo, you give us permission to use it to review the problem, share it with the kitchen involved, and settle disputes.

Liability

We work hard to make MealMate reliable, but we can't promise it will always be available or free of errors.

• Each kitchen is responsible for the food it prepares and delivers. We're responsible for running the platform, handling your payment, and applying these terms fairly.
• If something goes wrong because of us, our responsibility is limited to the amount you paid for the plan concerned, except where the law doesn't allow a limit, such as death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or fraud.
• We're not responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our control, such as hartals, floods, network or power outages, or problems at bKash or the SMS network. When a kitchen closes for these reasons, you're credited as described above.

Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have under the Consumer Rights Protection Act, 2009 or other Bangladeshi law.

Suspension and closing your account

You can delete your account at any time in the app (Account, then Delete account), or by writing to [contact email]; see mealmate.bd/delete-account and the Privacy Policy. If a plan you've paid for still has meals to come, you can delete your account once its last day has passed. Unused credit can't be paid out, so please use it first.

We may suspend or close your account if you break these terms, if we're required to by law, or if we stop operating in your area. If we close your account through no fault of yours, we'll refund the cash value of undelivered meals on your active plan.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as MealMate grows. If a change matters, we'll tell you in the app or by SMS at least 7 days before it takes effect. Changes don't affect plans you've already paid for. If you keep using MealMate after a change takes effect, the new terms apply.

Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of Bangladesh. If you have a complaint, contact us first and we'll try to resolve it quickly. You can also complain to the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection (generally within 30 days of the problem). Any dispute that can't be resolved this way will be decided by the courts of [governing courts].

Contact

• Email: [contact email]
• Post: [Company legal name], [registered address]
• Trade licence: [trade licence no.]