Food Photos for Delivery Apps: Just Eat, Deliveroo & Uber Eats

Short answer: Use your phone and soft daylight from a window, not harsh sun or kitchen strip lights. Shoot plates, pizzas and bowls from above, and burgers, wraps and tall dishes from a 45-degree angle. Keep the dish in the centre with nothing else in the shot: no hands, text or logos. Use real photos of your own food. Deliveroo doesn't allow AI-generated images, and all three apps check photos before they go live.

Want us to check your listings for you? See our delivery app optimisation services, starting with a free diagnostic.

Before you start: 5 minutes of set-up

Clean the phone lens. A greasy lens makes every photo look foggy.
Turn the flash off. Flash makes food look flat and shiny.
Use a table near a window. This is your studio.
Make the dish exactly as a customer gets it. Same portion, same box or plate. What people see must match what arrives.

Light: use the window

Uber Eats recommends a table with soft, indirect daylight from a window. Avoid very bright, direct sun, which makes hard shadows, and avoid fluorescent strip lights. Deliveroo also recommends natural light, to avoid reflections and dark shadows. If the sun is strong, move the table back from the window or hang a thin white cloth over it.

Angle: from above, or from the side

From above (top-down): pizzas, curries, bowls, salads, boxes of chips. Uber Eats suggests this for plates and bowls.
From a 45-degree angle: burgers, wraps, kebabs, sandwiches and anything tall. Uber Eats suggests this for burgers, sandwiches and taller dishes.

Our advice: pick one angle for each menu section, so the menu looks tidy when customers scroll.

What each app checks

Deliveroo wants landscape JPEG photos up to 8MB: at least 1920 x 1080 pixels for your hero image and 1200 x 675 for dishes. Photos with hands, faces, text, watermarks or raw ingredients around the dish can be rejected, and AI-generated images aren't allowed. All the details are in Deliveroo's photo rules.
Just Eat checks photos by hand, so new images can take around 24 hours to appear after you publish your menu.
Uber Eats reviews each photo before it appears. If it rejects one, you see the reason on the item page and get an email telling you what to do.

The AI photo problem

AI photos look perfect, and that's the problem. Deliveroo doesn't allow AI-generated images and can flag AI-enhanced ones. Customers notice too: in one takeaway we audited, the only 1-star Google review said not to trust a place that advertises with AI images. When the food that arrives looks different from the photo, you also risk "not as pictured" complaints and lower ratings. Real photos of your real food are safer, and they're free.

Which dishes to photograph first

Your best sellers and everything in the first section of your menu.
Dishes the app marks as popular.
Meal deals and boxes. Show everything that comes in the box, so customers know what they get.
Everything else, a section at a time.

Deliveroo's Partner Hub also measures Menu Completeness, which counts dishes with photos and descriptions, so each new photo helps there too.

Want help with your photos?

Our Full Listing Audit (£199) checks the photos on every app you're on: which dishes have none, which ones Deliveroo flags as AI-enhanced, and how you compare with the strongest restaurant near you. Then it tells you which photos to replace first.

Not sure your photos are the problem? Send us your listing for a free diagnostic first.

About Restaurant Hero: Restaurant Hero audits Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats listings for UK and Irish restaurants: a free diagnostic to find what's holding you back, a £199 full audit to plan the fixes, a £500 audit and fix across every app, and ongoing support if you want it. Get your free diagnostic →

Sources

Platforms change their rules and fees. Figures were checked on the date above. Restaurant Hero is independent. We're not part of, or endorsed by, Just Eat, Deliveroo or Uber Eats.

Food photos for Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats: how to take photos that sell