For offices that cater lunch regularly — whether that is one day a week for a team catch-up, three days a week for the whole floor, or every working day for a growing company — booking each order individually is a significant admin overhead that nobody benefits from. Standing orders remove that overhead while giving the caterer better planning visibility, which in practice means better quality, more reliable delivery, and a smoother service for the office manager placing the orders.
Vanda's Kitchen operates weekly standing order arrangements with corporate clients across central London. Certified halal, 100% nut-free kitchen, 5-star food hygiene, stocked in Selfridges Food Hall. Our standing orders range from single-day weekly bookings to five-day-per-week rotating menus across hundreds of employees. View our team lunch options.
How a standing order actually works
A standing order is a pre-agreed arrangement with recurring scheduling, confirmed quantities, and a defined menu approach. Instead of emailing the caterer each Monday morning to confirm Thursday's lunch, the office manager sets up one arrangement that runs until changed. The caterer knows in advance: how many portions, which day, what time delivery, what dietary mix, and how variation is managed week to week.
The recurring components are fixed: delivery address, contact person, approximate headcount range, core allergen requirements, delivery window, invoicing details. The variable components — usually menu rotation across weeks and minor quantity adjustments — are managed via a simple weekly confirmation (sometimes as brief as a reply to an email asking "same as last week?"). For offices that run consistent catering, this reduces the weekly admin from 30 minutes to under 5.
For the caterer, standing orders mean better production planning. Ingredients are bought with confidence, kitchen scheduling is predictable, and delivery routing is optimised. These efficiencies translate into better food quality and more reliable service for the client — a caterer who knows in advance what they are cooking produces better food than one scrambling to fit a last-minute order into the day's schedule.
What to specify when setting up a standing order
A well-structured standing order anticipates variation so it does not need renegotiation each week. The core specifications are straightforward. Days and times of delivery — typically one or more fixed weekdays at a specific delivery window such as 11:30 or 12:00. Expected headcount with acceptable variance — most arrangements allow ±10% week-to-week without requiring re-specification.
Core dietary mix — the number of halal, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and nut-allergic portions expected in a standard week. With our structural certifications (fully halal kitchen, 100% nut-free), most of these requirements are handled automatically without individual specification per order. Read our halal catering guide and our nut-free catering page.
Menu rotation approach — some clients want the same format every week for predictability (for example, always a hot meal pack, or always a salad and sandwich selection); others want rotation across a four-week cycle to keep variety. Either works; the choice is about what your team prefers. Invoicing cadence — weekly or monthly, to one contact or via a finance workflow, with PO numbers if required. Agreed pricing — locked for the duration of the arrangement with review at agreed intervals.
Our standing order formats
For daily office lunches, our standard formats include the Freedom Tray individual portion format (each employee receives their own labelled meal — best for mixed dietary requirements), hot meal packs in 10, 20, or 40-portion variants (chilli beef, honey garlic salmon, chicken pasta, chicken curry, or chef's mix), and light lunch platters (sandwiches, salads, fruit — for afternoon meetings or lighter days).
We can rotate across these formats through the week — for instance, hot meal packs Monday and Wednesday, light platters Tuesday and Thursday, Freedom Trays on Friday — or hold to one consistent format. For multi-day arrangements we provide consolidated weekly billing and a single point of contact, which simplifies the admin workflow for the office manager significantly.
Volume discounts and ordering thresholds
Standing orders at scale benefit from volume pricing. For team lunch commitments of 50 meals or more per week, we apply 10% off the standard rate. For 100 meals or more per week, 15% off. Delivery is included at no additional charge within our central London zone for standing orders over £500 per week. For organisations running regular lunches across multiple days for large teams, these discounts compound over the year into meaningful catering budget savings.
For the full catering shop and pricing detail, see our catering shop. Volume and standing-order pricing is confirmed at the point of arrangement setup and held for the duration of the agreement.
Delivery and coverage
We deliver across central London from our EC4 base near St Paul's. Core coverage includes the City, Holborn, Westminster, South Bank, King's Cross, Shoreditch, Canary Wharf, Islington, and Paddington. Delivery windows are agreed as part of the standing arrangement — most offices specify a tight 30-minute window around their preferred lunchtime, and our delivery operation is built around meeting those specific windows rather than broader guessed timings.
Getting started
Setting up a standing order takes one conversation. We discuss the team size, dietary mix, preferred format, delivery days, and budget — and then confirm the arrangement in writing. The first week runs as a trial; we confirm it is working as expected; then the arrangement is in place until either side wants to change it.
To discuss a standing order: WhatsApp us, send an enquiry, or visit our corporate accounts page for invoice account details.
About Vanda's Kitchen
Vanda's Kitchen is an independent food business near St Paul's Cathedral EC4, stocked in Selfridges Food Hall and delivering certified halal, 100% nut-free, freshly prepared catering across London. Our kitchen holds a 5-star food hygiene rating and every item carries full Natasha's Law allergen labelling. Halal certification is independently verified by the Halal Friendly List. For regular corporate catering, standing order arrangements provide the efficiency of a long-term relationship with the quality of a caterer that takes each delivery seriously. WhatsApp us, send an enquiry, or view team lunch options.