Safety During an In-Home Booking

PlatedUp reviews every Cook's identity, eligibility, and background before they can accept bookings, and Cooks are expected to follow safe food-handling practices while preparing your meal — but no screening or safety process can guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong. A few simple habits help keep any in-home booking comfortable and safe.

Tips for a safe booking

• Confirm your Cook's identity matches their profile when they arrive.
• Keep communication about your booking inside the PlatedUp app.
• Trust your judgment — you can end a session and contact PlatedUp Support at any time if something feels wrong.

How PlatedUp approaches food safety

Cooks are expected to follow basic food-safety practices, including keeping food-preparation areas clean, preventing cross-contamination, cooking foods safely, and refrigerating or freezing prepared meals promptly.

This is meant to work quietly in the background of an ordinary booking — you shouldn't need to think about food-safety procedure to enjoy your meal.

Food-safety certification

Cooks must maintain the food-safety certification required by PlatedUp before they're eligible to accept bookings.

Safe preparation and cooking

Cooks are expected to use a food thermometer where appropriate and follow PlatedUp's safe minimum cooking standards. Your Cook may bring their own thermometer in a protective case — see Kitchen Equipment and Utensils for more on what a Cook may bring.

PlatedUp doesn't support recipes whose intended preparation calls for serving certain animal foods below PlatedUp's minimum food-safety standard — for example, intentionally undercooked poultry, ground meat, or seafood. Saying you're willing to accept the risk doesn't change this: your Cook will prepare that part of the meal safely, or, where that's not possible, decline that specific preparation while continuing the rest of your booking.

What if an ingredient doesn't seem safe?

If a Cook reasonably believes an ingredient or part of the kitchen cannot be used safely, they should avoid that item or activity and continue the rest of the booking when it can be done safely — see Kitchen Equipment and Utensils and Who Buys the Groceries? for how this fits into the rest of your booking.

A Cook won't use an ingredient with a clear safety problem, like visible spoilage, damaged packaging, or a known recall, and won't taste suspicious food to decide whether it's safe. This is a limited, reasonable judgment call — not a full food-safety inspection of your kitchen.

Multi-day meal prep and storage

Perishable prepared foods should be refrigerated promptly at 40°F (4°C) or below. As a general rule, most cooked leftovers should be used within about 3–4 days when refrigerated. For multi-day meal prep (covering up to 5 days), meals intended for later in that period may need to be frozen where appropriate rather than kept refrigerated the whole time — your Cook will let you know how to store what they've prepared. Storage limits vary by dish and ingredients, and not every dish is suited to the full 5-day window.

You're responsible for providing reasonably adequate refrigerator or freezer space, and suitable storage containers where your booking says they're needed — see Preparing Your Kitchen Before a Booking. If a storage need wasn't identified before your booking was confirmed, that's not automatically your responsibility.

Once your Cook has prepared and stored your food and finished your booking, you're responsible for how it's stored, thawed, reheated, and used afterward. Reheat leftovers thoroughly before eating.

What if my Cook becomes ill?

Cooks should not prepare food for customers while experiencing symptoms of a contagious illness that could make food handling unsafe. If your Cook cancels for this reason, it's treated as a safety-related cancellation — see What If My Cook Cancels? for the protections that apply.

What if a food-safety issue happens?

For an active emergency — like a fire, a serious injury, or a gas or electrical danger — contact local emergency services first, then see Emergency Situations. Don't wait to contact PlatedUp before getting help.

For a non-emergency food-safety concern, like a suspected foodborne illness or an ingredient or preparation issue, see Reporting a Safety Concern. Reporting a concern doesn't require you to prove what caused it, and PlatedUp doesn't declare a cause before reviewing the available information.

Reporting a food-safety concern

A safety report and a refund request are related but different. You can always report a genuine safety concern to PlatedUp, even outside the standard refund reporting windows — but reporting a concern doesn't automatically reopen refund eligibility or decide a refund outcome; that continues to follow the timing and process described in Refunds.

If symptoms are severe or there may be a medical emergency, seek appropriate medical care or call 911 — don't wait for PlatedUp Support first.

Still need help?

If you have a concern about a specific Cook's conduct, see Reporting a Cook. For anything else, contact PlatedUp Support.