Your first Plate Mate purchase, step by step

There is a Plate Mate machine in the lobby and you have never used one. The whole purchase is eight steps, and only the first time needs any thought: after that, it is routine.

1. Find a machine. Open the machine map on our website, pick the nearest one and check who it is for.
2. Look at the menu. The assortment varies by machine; dishes, calories and macros are on our website.
3. Choose on the screen. Tap the dish, and the screen moves on to payment.
4. Pay. Cash or QR on every machine; a physical card you insert or swipe on some.
5. Pick up. The meal comes down to the door at the bottom. Pull it open and take the pack.
6. Check the pack. Use-by date, an undamaged pack, cold to the touch.
7. Heat it. In the built-in microwave right after you buy, or at home. Either way, follow the instructions on the pack.
8. Eat, or chill for later. Eat soon after heating. Saving it? Fridge as soon as you get home, and eat it by the date on the pack.

Before you go downstairs

Our working machines are listed on the machine map. They stand inside buildings, usually in the lobby, and who can reach them depends on the building's rules: a condo machine is for residents and their guests, while one in a gym or an office building follows that venue's rules and hours. No machine in your building yet? You can suggest your condo.

The current menu is on our website, though the assortment varies by machine. On the menu, each dish shows calories, protein, fat and carbohydrates. Calories and macros on our packs are calculated from the recipe (ingredients and weights), not measured in a laboratory, so read them as a guide rather than a lab result. For example:

Chicken Meatballs in Mushroom Sauce with Rice

499 kcal · P 47 · F 11 · C 53

Per pack. Calculated from the recipe, not measured in a lab.

See the full menu →

If you track what you eat, choose at home and just find the dish on the screen.

Paying: what works where

All machines take cash and QR payments (PromptPay, TrueMoney, Alipay, WeChat Pay); some also take physical bank cards (no contactless). QR is simplest for most people: scan the code on the screen with your banking or wallet app and confirm. Cash helps when your phone is flat. A card works only on a machine with a reader, inserted or swiped; tapping a card, Apple Pay and Google Pay won't go through.

Check the pack before you walk away

Every meal has a use-by date on the pack, and use-by dates are about safety: they tell you when food is no longer safe to eat (GOV.UK). The pack should have no tears, leaks or swelling, and since meals in our machines are chilled, not frozen, it should feel fridge-cold. The full list is in our check-the-pack checklist.

Heat it at the machine or upstairs

Our machines have a built-in microwave that heats a meal after purchase. It only works after a purchase, so you won't find someone else's lunch in it. Packs carry reheating instructions. Heating at home on a microwave with a different power level from the pack's means adjusting the time (reading reheating instructions).

The target is the same wherever you heat: the UK Food Standards Agency advises heating food until it is steaming hot throughout, not just warm, and reheating it only once (FSA). If the middle is still lukewarm, give it a little longer: in a microwave the centre usually heats last (reheating evenly).

A meal saved for later should get home quickly: Victoria's health department advises taking chilled food home as soon as possible after buying it (Better Health Channel). Put it in the fridge and eat it by the date on the pack.

If the machine misbehaves

Occasionally a payment seems not to go through, a meal doesn't come down or a pack looks damaged. Then:

1. Don't eat a meal you are unsure about.
2. Note which machine, roughly what time, which dish and how you paid.
3. Photograph the pack and the date, or the screen if it showed an error.
4. Contact us on WhatsApp, Telegram or by phone; contacts are in the site footer.

Some machines have a camera that helps us review disputed purchases, and those details help us work out what happened. What goes on inside the cabinet and the payment panel is laid out in how a smart food vending machine works.

Buyers deal with Plate Mate directly, so there is no need to go to the building office.