High-quality recipe content is at the heart of Mealz. By inspiring our authors to share top quality recipes, we empower our readers to discover life-changing content.
There are two types of content creators on Mealz:
- Authors who share their content for exposure.
- Authors who work with Mealz and our partners to monetize their content.
Please note that some of the guidelines differ depending on your publishing goals.
When publishing a recipe on Mealz, please follow the guidelines below:
- Share delicious recipes.
Please share the recipes you believe our readers would love to see on Mealz.
- Although recipes are not copyrighted, we would highly encourage you to share your own recipes only.
- To get better exposure and share your recipes with the Mealz audience, you are more than welcome to share recipes that you have already shared on your website or social media accounts. Your content does not need to be original.
- In order to be able to monetize your content on Mealz, we require the recipes to be original and not available online and on any other platforms.
- When working with our food brand partners, please carefully follow the guidelines agreed with the partner. Please note that most of them will require the content to be original and created according to their instructions.
- In case you are featuring another food brand that you have agreed to work with, please disclose the partnership and mention the name of the brand in the recipe.
- Unique recipe descriptions: inspirational and well-written.
People love reading about recipes: their history, the story behind the dish and how you learned to cook it. Through these stories behind recipes, authors connect to our readers and share the great love for cooking.
- All recipe descriptions must be unique and written specifically for Mealz. Do not copy and paste this section for any of your recipes from other sources, including your own blog. This will harm your positioning on Google and other search engines and will damage your SEO.
- The descriptions are copyrightable. Please ensure that you do not copy descriptions from any of the other authors.
- The minimum word count for descriptions is 50 words. The recipes with no description will not be published.
Our team carefully checks every single recipe description and the ones that are duplicated or plagiarised will be unpublished from the platform.
- Step-by-step recipe instructions: clear, concise and easy to follow.
Please include clear and well-written instructions for every recipe. The step-by-step instructions must be written in high-level, error-free and fluent English. We encourage authors to also pay attention to grammar and spelling to ensure that the recipe gets published.
- High-quality images.
Mealz is a visual platform and the quality of images is crucial for Mealz readers and authors. Please include only high-resolution images for published recipes.
We will only accept high-quality images on a clear background, with dimensions of at least 1000px x 1000px. Your images will be adjusted automatically to fit our various display slots, but the majority of those slots are either square or have 1.5 x 1 proportion (width x height).
- Do not include text, emojis, watermarks or mention your social media accounts on images. These images will be rejected.
- Ensure that the dish on the picture is visible and it is clear what it is. Do not upload pictures with too zoomed in or zoomed out dishes that are hard to distinguish or understand what is on the plate.
- The style of your photography often plays an important role and ensures that your pictures and recipes stand out. Please pay attention to the general style of Mealz and follow our style where you can.
- Lighting is crucial. Please ensure that your lighting works for you and not against you.
- Do not include branded products on the picture, unless you feature the branded product and include it to promote. Do not forget to clearly state that the content is sponsored in case it is.
- The background should be enhancing the dish. You can use various materials for your backgrounds such as cloth, wood, paper or canvas. We highly recommend you to go with solid plain colors. Backgrounds with bright patterns often distract the reader from the dish.
- Be aware of the kitchenware you include in your pictures. We highly recommend not to use any plastic dishes as they often get criticized and do not look great on pictures.
- For main images only upload the pictures with a fully prepared dish. Pictures of the cooking in the process are only suitable for step-by-step instructions images.
- To increase the number of views for your recipe and to be featured on the front page of the platform, please include step-by-step images for your recipes. Recipes with high-quality images for each of the preparation steps of the recipe will be prioritized over recipes with no step-by-step visual instructions.
- If you are monetizing your content on Mealz or your recipes are created for our food brand partners, step-by-step instruction images are required.
- Images are copyrightable. Please only use your own images. If you use images taken by someone else, please ask for their permission first and give credit to their work.
Need help with photography? Email us on info@mealz.com and we will put you in touch with our partner food photographers.
- Professional video instructions for recipes.
Recipes with video instructions get clicked on 20 times more often than recipes without videos. We therefore highly recommend including video instructions for your recipes.
- Videos must be made professionally and presented in a clear, beautiful and consistent manner. Good lighting, music and bullet-point instructions must be included.
- Find the right angle. Ensure that the viewer can see the dish and the process. Too zoomed in or zoomed out videos will not be approved.
- Do not include any emojis, watermarks or mention your social media accounts on cover images for videos. These videos will be rejected.
- Be aware of the kitchen equipment and tableware you use in your videos. Plastic tableware often gets criticized and does not look great on videos.
- Pay attention to your background. Do not use bright small patterns, they distract the viewer from following the preparation instructions.
- In case you include branded products, please do not forget to clearly state that the content is sponsored.
- Do not include advertising in your videos.
- If you have a certain style for your videos, we highly recommend to stay consistent and use the same style for all of your videos. That will make you stand out and will help you create a strong brand.
- Video instructions are highly encouraged for authors who are planning to monetize the content on the platform or work with food brands.
- Videos are copyrightable. Please only use your own videos. If you use images taken by someone else, please ask for their permission and remember to credit their work.
- Videos not related to recipe instructions, including those made for promotional purposes, will be taken off and unpublished.
- Authors who include irrelevant videos will be disqualified and blocked from publishing in the future.
For premium video recipes, available on Mealz Premium, please follow the following suggestions in addition to the requirements above:
++ Camera: you can use your phone camera for the video; however, it’s generally recommended that someone else films you (e.g. your partner) and uses the back camera instead of the selfie camera;
++ Format: ideally, we are looking for horizontal positioning for the video recipes, so that it displays nicely on desktops computers and tablets (as opposed to the Instagram format).
++ Introduction: if possible, please include a few words from the chef before you start cooking. A short story about the recipe always helps viewers to connect and stay engaged throughout the process.
++ Duration: you can send us raw content for up to 20 minutes in duration. We will then cut the video during the postproduction, both to have a long 10-15min instructional video and shorter 1-min clip, where appropriate.
++ Lighting and sound: where possible, please aim to use as much natural light as possible and avoid shadows or dark environments. Please minimize any background noise whether possible.
++ One video file: it is advisable to create one long video rather than many short video clips, to enable smooth transitions between scenes (don’t worry if some bits will need to be cut from the video - our post-production team will take care of it).
Here is a great example of a video recipe created in the home environment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFi-6Zvcmqo
We are looking for something similar and would be happy to help with postproduction once we get the raw materials. One thing to highlight about this video is that it has been filmed by a third party (in this case Jimmy’s partner) – videos filmed by someone else look much better than videos filmed by chefs without an operator.
Need help with creating videos? Drop us an email on info@mealz.com and we will put you in touch with our partner food videographers.
- Accurate nutritional values.
The nutritional values for all of the recipes are calculated automatically. In case you doubt the accuracy of the information, please reach out to us, provide us with your calculations and we will adjust the values according to your source.
Please note that all recipes are subject to approval by the Mealz team. It may take up to 7 days to approve your recipes depending on the volume of content we receive. In case our team has ideas of how your recipes can be further improved to attract more views and engagement, we will get back to you and propose some changes. We also appreciate your time and effort and we allow up to two revisions of each of the recipes.