Who we are: NeighbourPlate Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17525495). Registered office: 128 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX. Contact: support@neighbourplate.com. In these terms "we", "us" and "NeighbourPlate" mean NeighbourPlate Ltd, and "you" means the person or business selling food through the app. Part B (sections 25 onwards) covers the NeighbourPlate Supplies store.
Part A — Selling On Neighbourplate
1. Our role and yours
NeighbourPlate is an online marketplace. We provide tools that let you list food, take orders and payment, message buyers and hand food over. We are not the food business: we do not employ you, we do not prepare, store, inspect or handle your food, and we do not make or approve what you sell. You are an independent food business and you are the seller in every sale. The contract for each sale is between you and the buyer.
2. You are responsible for the food you sell
You are legally responsible, to buyers, to the authorities and to us, for the food you prepare and sell. That includes:
- food safety and hygiene, including safe preparation, packing, storage, temperature control, use-by and best-before dates, and cross-contamination;
- allergens, ingredients and labelling, including everything required by the Food Information Regulations 2014 (and, for food you pack and sell on the same premises, the full-ingredient-list and allergen-emphasis rules for pre-packed-for-direct-sale food);
- the description, quantity, quality and price of what you list;
- the rights buyers have under consumer law, including that food is as described, of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose, and the information you must give a buyer before they buy;
- any harm, loss or claim that results from the food, and from any extra, note, label or instruction you provide.
Nothing in the app, in our checks, or in the Food Safety Hub transfers any of these responsibilities to us.
3. Who can sell, and food business registration
You must be 18 or over and based in the United Kingdom. You confirm that you are registered as a food business with your local authority where the law requires it (registration is normally needed at least 28 days before you start trading), that you hold any hygiene certificate, rating or qualification needed to sell food lawfully from your kitchen, and that you will keep that information accurate. We may ask for evidence as part of seller verification. Because a new registration normally needs time to be processed before an inspection, your first listing cannot go live until 28 days after your registration date. You must follow the food-safety laws that apply to your business.
4. Food hygiene rating and listing eligibility
Once your business appears on the Food Standards Agency's Food Hygiene Rating Scheme register, we check your published rating automatically at least once a day and show it to buyers. To keep listings live your rating must be 3 or above. If an inspection brings your rating below 3, your active listings are paused automatically and you are told why; this is a listing-level action, separate from an account suspension under section 21. Orders already placed and paid before the pause must still be fulfilled. You are not relisted automatically when your rating recovers: we will tell you that you are eligible and you choose what to relist. If you have not yet had a first inspection, or the register shows you as awaiting inspection or exempt, this section does not apply — having no rating is never treated as having a low one.
5. Allergens, extras and the allergen register
You must declare every allergen present in every dish and every extra (add-on) you list, and keep the declaration correct whenever a recipe, ingredient or supplier changes. Inaccurate allergen information can cause serious harm or death. You must check the ingredient information on every pack you use, every time.
- Extras must carry their own allergen declaration and are treated like any other dish. They appear in your Allergen Register, marked as dish add-ons, and must be confirmed in the same way as a meal.
- The Allergen Register is your record of what you have checked and when. When you correct a dish or extra, the app updates your live listings and tells buyers who have a paid order you have not yet handed over. This is a tool to help you; the accuracy of what it contains is your responsibility.
- A buyer's note to the cook is not a way for a buyer to arrange an allergen-safe meal. If a buyer tells you they have an allergy, do not rely on the note alone: read it, and if you cannot safely meet their need, say so before the order proceeds or cancel it under section 11.
- Give allergen information again, in writing, on or with every pack at collection, as the law requires.
6. Shelf life, use-by and best-before, storage — required for every listing
Before you can publish a Reserve or Ready Now listing, or send a Custom Order offer, you must declare whether the food carries a use-by date (a food-safety cut-off) or a best-before date (a quality indicator only), the number of days it is good for from collection, whether it must be refrigerated, and storage and reheating instructions for the buyer. You are expected to understand the legal difference before choosing. "Ready Now" describes collection timing only; it does not mean the food must be eaten at once. The platform will not let you publish or send an offer without this information.
7. Packaging and labels
Food you hand over must be packed safely and labelled with the information the law requires for that food, including the name of the food, your name and address or contact details, ingredients with allergens emphasised where required, and the use-by or best-before date. You may buy packaging from NeighbourPlate Supplies or anywhere else. Packaging you use that touches food must be suitable for food contact.
8. The food safety hub and your records
The Food Safety Hub (including the SFBB-style record keeping, diary, cleaning and temperature records, suppliers list, training records, allergen register, recipe book and receipts) is a set of tools to help you keep records. It is not legal advice, it is not an inspection, and it does not mean your business complies with the law. You remain responsible for your food safety management system and for what your records say. The records you create belong to you. We may view them where needed to verify your eligibility, to investigate a food-safety concern or complaint, or where a local authority or the Food Standards Agency asks us. If you add information about other people (for example a staff member's training), you must have the right to do so.
9. Insurance
We strongly recommend you hold public liability and product liability insurance that covers selling food from home and through an online marketplace, and that you tell your insurer you sell through NeighbourPlate. Check that your cover is valid for the food you make. We may require evidence of cover in future. NeighbourPlate's own insurance does not cover you.
10. Prices, fees and what you receive
You set the price of your food and of each extra. NeighbourPlate's charges are shown in the app before an order is confirmed. For each completed order you receive the full price you set (including extras), and we do not deduct our service charge from it. The exceptions are the amounts described in sections 11 and 14 (cancellations, refunds, disputes and chargebacks). The prices of Supplies products and postage, and the options and prices for boosts, are set in the app, not in these terms, and we may change them at any time; the price shown before you pay is the price for that purchase. If we change the way our marketplace charges on orders, we will give you at least 15 days' notice and you can stop selling before it takes effect.
11. Order deadlines and cancelling an order you have accepted
- Reserve: buyers can cancel freely up to the deadline you set on the listing.
- Custom Order: buyers can cancel freely up to the point worked out from the notice period you state you need.
- Ready Now: there is no equivalent buyer cancellation window.
If you need to cancel a confirmed order, you choose whether it is an ordinary cancellation or a genuine emergency or food-safety cancellation, and the reason is recorded against your account either way. The buyer always receives a full refund of the food amount and the service fee.
- An ordinary cancellation is charged back to you: the buyer's service fee that NeighbourPlate refunds, plus the payment-processing cost for that order. This is normally taken from your next payout; if you have no upcoming payout it can be paid from Your Earnings.
- A genuine emergency or food-safety cancellation is not charged to you, but this is limited to once every 90 days. A second one inside that window is treated as ordinary.
While you owe an outstanding balance above a small grace amount, publishing new listings is paused until it is cleared. A pattern of frequent cancellations, including ones marked as emergencies, may be reviewed and can affect your ability to keep selling.
12. Collection and handover
Buyers get a collection pass in the app: a QR code with a matching 6-digit number beneath it. You confirm the handover either by scanning the QR code or by entering the 6-digit number. Do not release food to someone who cannot show the pass or give you the correct number. Check the buyer's order, hand over the correct allergen and storage information, and keep your hygiene standards at handover.
13. Payments and payouts
Payouts are made through our payment provider to the bank details you give it. NeighbourPlate never sees or stores them. To be paid you must complete the payment provider's identity and account checks and accept its own terms for connected accounts, which are shown to you during setup and are an agreement between you and the provider. We collect the buyer's payment on your behalf and release your earnings to you after collection, with a delay designed to give buyers a fair window to report a genuine problem. A payout can be delayed or held further while an issue report or a card chargeback is open on an order, or until you have given us the tax details we need (section 15). Any balance you owe NeighbourPlate is deducted from a payout before it is sent.
You appoint NeighbourPlate as your agent for the limited purposes of concluding sales of your listed food with buyers on your behalf through the app and of collecting the price from the buyer for you. NeighbourPlate acts for you only in doing this and does not act for the buyer. A buyer's payment to us discharges the buyer's obligation to pay you for that order.
14. Issue reports, disputes and chargebacks
If a buyer reports an issue you can respond and give your own evidence before an administrator decides. If you are found responsible, amounts NeighbourPlate refunds to the buyer as a result can be recovered from you: the food amount of the refund, the payment-processing cost, and, where the outcome is a full refund because the order was not provided, the service-fee part of the refund too. If you are found not responsible, nothing is recovered from you. If a buyer disputes a payment with their bank and the bank reverses it (a chargeback), the amount and any fees the bank or our payment provider charge may be recovered from you where the order was yours, and your payout may be held while we gather evidence. Reports made late are still reviewed and you will still be asked to respond. Our decision on a dispute does not limit the buyer's or your legal rights.
15. Tax and reporting
You are responsible for your own tax, including income tax on what you earn, any VAT registration you may need, and registering with HMRC as self-employed or setting up a company where that is required. We do not give tax advice, and we do not decide for you when you need to register or what you owe.
UK rules for digital platforms (the Platform Operators (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2023) require us to collect certain details from every seller: your name, home address (or your company's registered office), date of birth if you are an individual, and your tax identification number (or company number). We must check them, keep them for five years, and report each seller's details and yearly earnings through the platform to HMRC, unless the seller is below the small-seller limits set by the rules. We give you a copy of what we report about you.
You must give us accurate details when you apply, keep them up to date, and tell us if they change. Until we hold your details you cannot publish listings or receive payouts, and we may suspend your listings and hold your payouts if you do not provide or update the details we ask for. Your tax details are private and are never shown to buyers.
16. Reviews, messages and replies
Buyers can review you after a completed order, and you can reply publicly. You must not write, buy, trade or ask for fake or incentivised reviews, and you must not pressure buyers about reviews. Messages in the app are checked automatically, and may be reviewed by our team, for abuse, fraud, safety concerns and off-platform payment attempts.
Protection from illegal content (this also applies to your listings, photos, profile text, messages and replies):
We do not allow illegal content or illegal activity on NeighbourPlate. That includes terrorism content, child sexual exploitation and abuse, threats and harassment, fraud and scams, and any other criminal content.
How we protect you: you, and anyone else (including people who do not use the app), can report a listing, message, review or user from the app, or by emailing support@neighbourplate.com. We review reports. Where content is illegal or breaches these terms we act swiftly to take it down and may also remove listings, warn, suspend or close accounts, and report serious matters to the authorities. Terrorism content, child sexual exploitation and abuse content and other priority illegal content are treated as the most serious and are removed as quickly as we can once we are aware of them.
We also use automated tools, including keyword rules and an AI service, to check messages for abuse, threats, scams and attempts to take payment outside the app. These tools flag content for action or for review by our team. We apply these rules consistently to all users.
You can complain about how we handled a report, or about a decision on your account or content, by emailing support@neighbourplate.com. We will look at it again and tell you the outcome.
17. Your listings, photos and data
You must have the right to use all text and photos you upload. You keep ownership of everything you upload. You give us a free, non-exclusive licence to host, display, copy and promote your listings, profile and photos within the app and our marketing for NeighbourPlate, only so that we can run and promote the marketplace. Photos must be of the actual food you sell. The app's AI helper tools (photo check and enhancement, and drafting descriptions, bios and storage instructions) are optional suggestions. You must read and check everything before you publish, and you remain responsible for it.
Showing who you are: UK consumer law requires a trader to be identified to buyers before they buy. We show your name, your food business name and your registered business address (the address on your food business registration) on your listings.
Data access: when you sell, you can see your own listings, orders, the buyer's first name, collection details and any note, your messages with buyers, your reviews, and your earnings and payout records. You do not get access to buyers' contact or payment details. We hold and can access the data in the app, including messages, only as described in the Privacy Policy. You can download your own data under Profile > Privacy & Data.
18. How listings are shown
Listings appear to buyers in Discover, on the map and in search. For listings that are not boosted, the main factors are the ones the buyer chooses: the sort order they pick (nearest first by default, or price, rating, number of reviews or favourite cooks first), the filters they apply (such as allergens, listing type and distance), and whether the listing is still available to order. We use these because they help buyers find food near them that they can actually collect. Listings from sellers whose hygiene rating is below 3 are not shown (section 4). The only way to pay for better placement is a boost (section 19): a boosted listing is shown first and marked "Featured", ahead of listings that are not boosted.
NeighbourPlate does not sell food. It sells packaging and kitchen supplies to sellers through the Supplies store, which does not compete with sellers' food and gets no ranking advantage. We do not market your food through other distribution channels or affiliate programmes.
19. Boosting a listing (paid promotion)
You can pay to boost an active listing. A boosted listing is sorted first in Discover and marked "Featured" for the duration you choose, and may be shown to buyers beyond the usual distance. Because it is paid promotion, buyers are told it is a promoted listing.
- Price and duration: the available durations and their prices are shown in the app before you pay, and the price shown is the price you pay. We may change the options, prices and durations at any time; a change applies only to boosts bought after it and never to one you have already paid for.
- One featured spot: if you boost more than one listing, they take turns in the featured spot rather than all showing at once, so a boost does not guarantee a listing is featured at any given moment, or that it will be seen, ordered or sold.
- Start and end: the boost starts when payment is confirmed and ends at the end of the chosen duration. You can only boost a listing that is active, and a listing that is already boosted cannot be boosted again until the boost ends.
- No refunds, except for our fault: a boost is a digital promotional service that starts straight away, so it is not refundable once it has started. If a boost did not run because of a fault on our side we will refund you or extend it. If your listing is sold out, paused, removed or relisted, or your account is restricted, we do not refund or extend the boost unless the cause was on our side.
- Fair use: we may pause or remove a boost, with a refund of the unused part, where it is needed to keep the marketplace fair or safe, or where a listing is removed for our reasons.
20. Prohibited off-platform arrangements
Arranging or taking payment for a NeighbourPlate order outside the app is not permitted and is a breach of these terms.
This is the only restriction we place on how you sell. The reason for it is that payment outside the app removes the refund, dispute and payout protections for both sides and the food-safety records for the order. You remain free to sell your food elsewhere, on any terms you choose.
21. Suspension and ending
We may restrict, suspend or remove a seller account for breach of these terms, repeated cancellations, fraud or abuse, serious or repeated food-safety problems (including a pattern of low ratings), or where we are required to by law or by an authority. Where we do, we will tell you why, in writing (in your account inbox in the app, and by email where we can), and give you a chance to respond, except where we are prevented by law or where the risk to buyers means we must act at once. A low hygiene rating is mainly dealt with by the listing-level rule in section 4. You can stop selling and delete your account at any time under Profile > Privacy & Data, once any open orders, unpaid earnings, money owed and disputes are settled. If we end your account for reasons other than serious breach or risk, we will give at least 30 days' notice.
22. Your indemnity
You agree to compensate NeighbourPlate for losses, claims, fines and reasonable costs we suffer because of food you sold or any information you gave (including incorrect allergen information), because you breached these terms or the law, or because of a claim by a buyer, another person or an authority arising from your food.
23. Our liability
We are responsible for running the marketplace and payment platform with reasonable care and skill. We do not exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded. Subject to that, we are not liable to you for loss of profit, business or goodwill, for indirect loss, or for losses caused by events outside our reasonable control (including payment-provider, app-store or network outages), and our total liability to you in connection with the marketplace in any 12 months is limited to the fees we received from you in that period.
24. Changes, complaints and general
We may change these terms, our fees and charges (including the prices of Supplies and the prices and durations of boosts), and the features of the app, from time to time for valid reasons, including changes in law, regulation or the requirements of a payment provider or authority; security, safety or fraud prevention; new or changed features; changes in our costs; and correcting errors or making the terms clearer. We will give you at least 15 days' notice of proposed changes to these terms and to the way our marketplace charges on orders, by notice in the app (which you can keep) and by email where we can. We may act sooner where the law, safety or an authority requires it, or where the change is in your favour. During the notice period you can end your agreement with us and stop selling, and delete your account (once any open orders and money owed are settled); this takes effect within 15 days of your notice. You can waive the notice period by accepting the new version in the app or by listing new food during the notice period, and if you keep selling after a change takes effect you accept it. You will be asked to accept the new version before continuing to use seller features, and we keep a record of which version you accepted and when. Prices that are shown in the app at the point of purchase, such as Supplies products, postage and boosts, can change without notice and apply to purchases made after the change, never to one you have already paid for. You can contact us about any complaint at support@neighbourplate.com; we will reply in writing and aim to answer within 14 days, and you can escalate to a senior member of our team. These terms and any dispute about them are governed by the law of England and Wales and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction (if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you may use your local courts). If part of these terms is found unenforceable the rest still applies. Our Buyer Terms and Privacy Policy also apply.
Part B — Neighbourplate Supplies (Packaging And Kitchen Supplies)
25. Who you are buying from
Supplies is a separate store, run by NeighbourPlate Ltd. Unlike food sold on the marketplace, we are the seller in every Supplies order, and the contract for it is between you and NeighbourPlate Ltd. These Supplies terms apply to Supplies orders only. You are buying for use in your food business, not as a consumer. If you are buying as a private individual, none of your statutory consumer rights are affected.
26. Orders and prices
Products, prices and the postage charge are shown before you pay, and the total shown at payment is what you pay. We may change products, prices and postage at any time, and a change applies only to orders placed after it. You place an order in the app and pay by card through our payment provider. An order is accepted when we confirm it and is completed when we dispatch it. We check stock when you pay and, if an item turns out not to be available, we will tell you and refund you for it. We reserve the right to correct an obvious pricing error before dispatch and, if we do, to give you the option to cancel and be refunded.
27. Delivery
We deliver to addresses in the United Kingdom you add in the app. Delivery times are estimates, not guarantees. Risk of loss or damage passes to you when the order is delivered, and ownership passes when you have paid in full. Check your order on delivery and tell us promptly of anything missing or damaged. You can mark the order delivered in the app.
28. Food-contact products, traceability and recalls
We keep each product's supplier documentation, including declarations of compliance where applicable, and record which batch each order came from so that we can trace a product if there is a problem. The documents are available in your order in the app. If a product is recalled or withdrawn we will contact you through the app and by email and tell you what to do. You must read and act on a recall notice, keep your own records of the supplies you use (the Food Safety Hub can help), and use products only for their intended purpose and in line with the instructions with them. It is your responsibility to decide whether a product is suitable for the food you make.
29. Cancelling, returns and problems
You can cancel an order before we dispatch it by contacting support@neighbourplate.com, and we will refund you. Because Supplies are bought for your business, there is no right to return items simply because you changed your mind, and we do not accept returns of opened or used items that are not faulty.
If an item arrives damaged, wrong or missing from your order, tell us within 7 days of delivery, with a photo where it helps, and we will replace it or refund you, at our option. We may ask you to keep the item and its packaging until we have dealt with the report.
If an item has a defect that was not obvious on delivery, tell us as soon as you find it. Your legal rights for goods that are not as described, not of satisfactory quality or not fit for their purpose are not limited by the 7-day period above. If you are buying as a consumer rather than for your business, your consumer rights, including the right to reject faulty goods within 30 days, also continue to apply.
30. Liability for supplies
We do not exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, for defective products under the Consumer Protection Act 1987, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded. Subject to that, and as far as the law allows for a business buyer, our liability in connection with a Supplies order is limited to the price you paid for it, and we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business or indirect loss.
31. Your information
We use the name, phone number and delivery address you give us to process and deliver your Supplies order, and keep order and batch records for traceability and our accounts, as described in our Privacy Policy.