Subscription terms

These terms are between Tipsy Squirrel Events Ltd (company number 14694733, registered office1434 London Road, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex SS9 2UL; “I”, “me”) and you, the person subscribing. They cover the Meal Prep weekday lunch subscription sold on this site. By subscribing you agree to them. The boxes are made in Rayleigh, Essex by a food business registered with Rochford District Council.

1. What you are buying

A weekly subscription to five chilled lunch boxes — one for each of Monday to Friday — for each “box a day” you choose at checkout. The menu runs on a four-week cycle published on this site. Each box is around 300g, made to be eaten cold, cooked twice weekly and never more than three days old, and designed for smaller appetites. If an ingredient is unavailable I may substitute a like-for-like ingredient, keeping to the allergen statement in section 6.

Delivery is available to addresses in the SS postcode area (Southend-on-Sea and the surrounding towns — Rayleigh, Hockley, Leigh-on-Sea, Benfleet, Canvey, Basildon and around). If your address is outside it I will tell you before anything is made and refund anything paid.

2. Ordering, cut-off and payment

The cut-off is Thursday, midday. Subscribe at any time; your first week starts on the Monday after the first cut-off following your sign-up, and nothing is charged when you subscribe. Your card is then charged £40 per box-a-day at each Thursday cut-off for the week ahead, and the subscription renews weekly until you cancel. No VAT is added: the company is not VAT registered. Payments are taken by Stripe under its own terms; I never see your card details.

3. Cancelling, pausing and changing

You can cancel at any time from your subscription page (linked in every receipt and in your welcome email) or by messaging me. Cancelling before Thursday midday stops the following week: it is neither made nor charged. A week that has already been charged is made and delivered as normal.

Because the boxes are perishable and made to order, the fourteen-day right to cancel a distance purchase does not apply to a week that has been charged. It does apply to the subscription itself, which you can end at any time as above. To change the number of boxes, do so from your subscription page before the Thursday cut-off, or message me. To pause, cancel before a Thursday and subscribe again when you are ready.

4. Delivery and handover

Boxes are delivered chilled to the address you gave at checkout: on Sunday for 3 days’ lunches, and onWednesday evening for the rest of the week. On each delivery day, when I set off, you get a message with an approximate one-hour window.

Someone must be in. The boxes are handed to you, or to another adult at the address, and go straight into the fridge. I do not leave boxes on doorsteps, in porches or with neighbours, because I cannot keep them cold there. If nobody can take them, I will call or message you and wait a few minutes, then carry on and try once more at the end of the run. If that fails too, that delivery is lost: the boxes cannot be kept safely for another day, and the week is not refunded. If I fail to deliver for a reason that is mine, you get that week back in full.

Responsibility for the boxes passes to you at handover. Everything in section 5 applies from that moment.

5. After handover: your responsibilities

These are the conditions the boxes were designed for, and the conditions I rely on. They follow the Food Standards Agency’s advice for chilled food.

• Fridge straight away. Put every box in a fridge running at 0–5°C as soon as it is handed over — within an hour at most. Chilled food should never be out of the fridge for more than four hours in total.
• Eat on the day marked. Each box is labelled with the day it is for; that day is its use-by. Do not eat a box after its day, even if it looks and smells fine.
• Eat cold. Do not reheat. The boxes are built to be eaten cold. Reheating changes them and is outside what I have designed and tested; they are not made for freezing either.
• Lid on until you eat. Keep boxes sealed in the fridge, away from raw meat and fish. Once opened, eat the box; do not keep an opened box for later.
• If in doubt, throw it out. A box that was left out of the fridge for more than four hours, sat in a fridge that failed, or is past its day should be thrown away, not eaten.
• Sharing. If you give a box to someone else, you are responsible for checking its allergen label against their needs.

I am not responsible for a box that is eaten or kept other than as above, and a problem caused by storage or handling after handover is not a defect in the food.

6. Allergens and dietary needs

Every box is made without gluten-containing, milk, egg, soy or sesame ingredients. Any other regulated allergen present in a box — nuts, celery, mustard and sulphites are the ones this menu could involve — is named on that box’s label, and I will tell you before you subscribe which boxes in the cycle contain which [per-box allergen list for the site still to be compiled]. Check the label of each box, every week: the menu changes and so do the allergens.

If you have an allergy or intolerance, tell me before you subscribe and I will tell you plainly whether the boxes are suitable [state whether individual boxes can be adapted, and which allergens the kitchen handles]. I cannot act on an allergy I have not been told about.

7. What I am responsible for

• Food that is safe, chilled, and correctly labelled with its day and allergens when it is handed over, and that matches the published menu (allowing for like-for-like substitutions).
• Delivering on the days above, to the address you gave, within the window I messaged you, or telling you as soon as I know I cannot.
• Replacing or refunding any box that is wrong, damaged or below standard at handover. Tell me the same day — a photo helps — at mike@tipsysquirrelevents.com or on WhatsApp, and keep the box in the fridge until we have spoken.

8. Liability

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits my liability for death or personal injury caused by my negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not let me exclude — including your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 to food that is of satisfactory quality and as described, and under the Consumer Protection Act 1987. A term that tried to would not be binding on you, and I am not asking you to give those rights up.

Beyond that: I am not liable for illness, loss or damage caused by boxes being stored, handled, shared or eaten other than as set out in sections 5 and 6, or by an allergy I was not told about; I am not liable for losses that were not foreseeable when you subscribed, or for business losses; and my total liability to you for any one week is limited to the price you paid for that week.

9. Problems and complaints

Tell me the same day at mike@tipsysquirrelevents.com or on WhatsApp (07960 862841) and I will put it right or refund it. If we cannot agree, you can use the courts of England and Wales; these terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. Nothing in these terms limits your statutory rights.

10. Changes to these terms

If I need to change these terms or the price, I will email you at least seven days before the change takes effect. If you do not want the change, cancel before it starts and you will not be charged under it. How I handle your personal details is set out in the privacy notice.