1. About these Terms
These terms (“Terms”) apply to the Dad’s Dinner mobile app and our website, https://www.dadwhatsfordinner.co.za/ (together, “the Platform”), and to the services we provide through them (“Services”). The Platform is run by Dad Whats for Dinner (Pty) Ltd (reg: 2025/616693/07) (“Dad’s Dinner”, “we”, “us”). “You” means the person using the Platform.
Before you use the app, it asks you to agree to these Terms. If you are under 18, your parent or guardian must agree to them for you. By continuing, creating an account, signing in with Google or Apple, subscribing, or using the app as a guest, you agree to these Terms. We keep a record of the version you accepted and when. Our Privacy policy explains how we handle your personal information. If you do not agree to these Terms, please do not use the Platform.
Please read the bold paragraphs carefully. They limit our risk or liability, place risk or responsibility on you, require you to indemnify us, or record facts that you acknowledge.
Nothing in these Terms takes away rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (“CPA”), the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 (“ECT Act”) or the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”) that the law does not allow us to limit.
2. Our services
What the app does
Dad’s Dinner helps you plan meals and shop for them. Anyone can browse recipes for free. A subscription (section 5) unlocks:
- full recipe details and the meal planner;
- a shopping list built from your plan, with price comparison across supermarkets;
- the nutrition diary, for users aged 18 or older (section 4); and
- recipe import, which turns photos of your own recipes into recipes in the app (section 6).
You can also keep a list of what is in your fridge, save favourite recipes and use cooking timers. We may add, change or remove features over time. Section 15 explains how we tell you about material changes.
Licence to use the app
While you comply with these Terms, we give you a personal, revocable, non-exclusive and non-transferable licence to use the Platform for your own household, non-commercial purposes. You may not copy, modify, reverse engineer, sublicense or otherwise exploit the software, except as the law allows.
3. Service disclaimers
Recipes: Recipes, meal suggestions and substitutions are general information. We do not guarantee that a recipe will suit your needs, equipment, skill, budget or taste, or that it will turn out as described.
Dietary, allergen and nutrition information: Dietary labels (such as “vegetarian” or “gluten-free”), allergen information, portion sizes and nutritional values are estimates and may be incomplete or wrong. Nutritional values come from product labels and manual entries, and some are estimated by AI and marked “Estimated”. You must check ingredients, allergens, cross-contamination risks and suitability for yourself. Dad’s Dinner does not give medical, health or dietary advice.
Nutrition diary, goals and insights: The nutrition diary, your calorie and nutrient goals and any insights are tools for keeping your own records. They are not medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, and are not designed to manage a medical condition. You set your own goals, and the figures shown are estimates. If you are managing a health condition, or food feels difficult for you, speak to a doctor or registered dietitian before relying on the diary.
Food safety: You are responsible for handling, storing and cooking food safely. Do not rely on the Services to judge whether food is safe to eat.
Imported recipes: Recipe import uses AI to read your photos. It can misread or leave out quantities, units, temperatures, cooking times, steps or allergens. You must check an imported recipe against the original before you save or cook it. Nutrition information on an imported recipe is copied from the original and is not calculated by us.
Price comparison: Prices are taken from selected reference stores of each retailer. They may differ from prices at your store or online, and may be out of date. Comparisons are a planning guide, not a quote. They leave out staples such as salt, pepper and oil, may leave out items we could not match to a product, and do not show shops that stock fewer than half of the items on your list, so a “best basket” may cover only part of your list. Dad’s Dinner is not affiliated with, endorsed by or paid by any retailer shown in the app. Anything you buy is subject to the retailer’s own terms.
Shopping lists: Shopping lists are generated from your plan and may leave out items or show wrong quantities. Check your list before you buy.
4. Accounts, guests and age
Guests: When you first open the app, it creates a guest account for you, without a name or email address. Anything you save as a guest, including a subscription, is linked to that guest account. Create an account if you want to keep your data and subscription when you change phones. To delete a guest account’s data, create an account, which keeps it, and then delete that account (see our Account deletion page).
Creating an account: You can sign up with an email address, or with Google or Apple. You must give accurate information and keep your login details secure. You are responsible for what happens on your account, and must tell us promptly if you think someone else has used it.
Under 18s: If you are under 18, you may use the app, except the nutrition diary, only if your parent or guardian agrees to these Terms and our Privacy policy for you before you start. Parents and guardians are responsible for their child’s use of the app, including purchases. We do not check ages, except for the nutrition diary.
Nutrition diary (18+): The nutrition diary is only for people aged 18 or older. Before it opens, the app asks for your date of birth, which you enter once and cannot change in the app. The diary will not open if you are under 18 or have not given a date of birth. If your date of birth is wrong, email nico@
Suspension: We may suspend or close an account as set out in section 13.
5. Subscriptions and payment
What a subscription includes: One subscription unlocks the paid features listed in section 2. Recipe import is limited to the monthly import allowance shown in the app.
Plans and prices: On the Apple App Store and Google Play, you can subscribe for R99.99 a month or R799.99 a year. On the App Store, each plan includes a one-week free trial; Google Play does not offer a trial. The price and trial shown by the store when you subscribe are the ones that apply, and the store decides whether you are eligible for a trial.
VAT: Prices are in rand and include any VAT. Apple or Google charges the VAT and pays it to the South African Revenue Service. Dad’s Dinner is not registered for VAT and does not issue tax invoices.
Billing: Subscriptions are sold and billed by Apple or Google, using the payment method on your store account. We never see your card details. The store’s terms also apply to your purchase, and the store gives you a receipt.
Automatic renewal: Your subscription renews automatically at the end of each month or year, and a free trial becomes a paid subscription when it ends, unless you cancel before then. The store charges the plan price at each renewal.
Cancelling: You can cancel at any time in your store account: on iPhone, in Settings → your name → Subscriptions; on Android, in the Google Play app → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions. You can also start from the app’s Manage subscription screen. Cancelling stops the next renewal, and you keep access until the end of the period you have paid for. Deleting the app or your Dad’s Dinner account does not cancel your subscription.
Refunds: Apple and Google handle refunds under their own refund policies. You can start from the app’s Manage subscription screen or ask the store directly. Nothing in this paragraph affects your rights under the CPA or the ECT Act.
Cooling-off: When you subscribe or start a free trial, you ask us to start the service immediately. Because the service starts at your request within the seven-day cooling-off period, the cooling-off right in section 44 of the ECT Act does not apply (section 42(2)(d)).
Price changes: We may change our prices. A new price applies only from a renewal after you have been told about it, and you may cancel before it takes effect.
When a subscription ends: If your subscription ends, including because the store could not take payment, paid features lock. We keep your plans, lists, diary and imported recipes, locked, until you subscribe again, delete your account, or we delete it after 2 years without use (see section 13).
Annual plans: Between 40 and 80 business days before your annual plan ends, we will tell you the renewal date and your options (renew for a year, switch to monthly, or cancel), by email or, if we have no email address for you, by a notification from the app. If you do nothing, the store renews your plan for another year.
6. Your content and recipe import
Your content: “Your content” means anything you add to the Platform, such as recipes you import, page and dish photos, lists and plans. You keep ownership of your content.
Licence to us: You give us, and the service providers that process data for us (such as Google, which reads imported pages), a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, copy, send, transcribe, adapt and display your content, only to provide the Services to you. We do not use your content for any other purpose, and Google may not use it to train its AI models. The licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies kept as our Privacy policy describes.
How recipe import works: With a subscription, you can photograph or upload up to 5 pages of a recipe (from the camera, your photos, an image or a PDF). Google’s Gemini AI reads the pages, and you check and edit the result before saving it. We check that the first page looks like a recipe, but do not otherwise review uploads. Page photos are deleted within 30 days. Saved recipes are private to you: they are not shared, not shown in search and not added to our recipe catalogue. You can delete them at any time. Before your first import, the app asks you to agree to these points.
Your right to upload: You may upload only material that you own or are entitled to copy for your own private use, for example your own recipes, a family recipe card or a page from a cookbook you own. You must not upload material in order to share or sell it. You are responsible for having the right to upload what you import.
Fair use: Recipe import is for household use and is limited to the monthly allowance shown in the app. We may limit or pause imports that are excessive or breach these Terms.
Infringement notices: If you believe material on the Platform infringes your copyright or other rights, email nico@
- your full name, address, phone number and email address;
- your written or electronic signature;
- the right you say is infringed, and the material concerned;
- what you want us to do; and
- a statement that you are acting in good faith and that the information in your notice is true and correct to your knowledge.
We will act promptly on a valid notice, which may include removing or disabling access to the material.
7. Acceptable use
You must not:
- break any law, or infringe anyone’s intellectual property, privacy or other rights;
- upload or send content that is threatening, harassing, defamatory, discriminatory or otherwise unlawful;
- send spam, or use bots, scrapers or scripts to access, copy or overload the Platform;
- upload malware, or interfere with the Platform’s security or operation;
- use the Platform for commercial purposes without our written consent; or
- help anyone else to do any of these things.
If you do, we may take the steps in section 13, report the matter to the authorities where required, or take legal action.
8. Privacy
Our Privacy policy explains what personal information we collect, why, who we share it with (including service providers outside South Africa), how long we keep it and your rights under POPIA. It covers the nutrition diary’s health information, recipe import and the app’s usage analytics, which you can switch off in Settings → Share usage data.
9. Notifications and links
We send service emails, such as account verification and password resets, and push notifications for features you use, such as cooking timers. Meal-plan reminders, new-recipe updates and product news are off by default, and we send marketing only with your consent. We do not send SMS messages.
The Platform may link to other websites. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content or terms.
10. Intellectual property
The Platform, its software, design, text, recipes, images and trade marks belong to Dad’s Dinner or our licensors. Except as these Terms allow, you may not copy, publish, distribute, sell or modify them without our written consent. Third-party material in the Platform is also subject to its owner’s licence terms. Your own content is dealt with in section 6.
11. Liability and indemnity
The Platform and Services are provided “as is” and “as available”. To the extent the law allows, we do not promise that they will be uninterrupted, error-free, free of viruses or suitable for your particular needs, and you use them at your own risk.
To the extent the law allows, Dad’s Dinner and its directors, contractors and agents are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss (including loss of profit, data or goodwill) arising from your use of, or inability to use, the Platform. This includes loss caused by interruptions, bugs or malware; unauthorised access to our systems despite our reasonable security measures; retailers or other third parties; or your reliance on recipes, nutrition figures, the nutrition diary, imported recipes, prices or shopping lists.
To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for any other loss is limited to the greater of the fees you paid for the Platform in the 12 months before the claim arose, or R1,000.
Nothing in these Terms limits our liability for loss caused by our gross negligence or wilful misconduct, for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or where the CPA does not allow it.
We are not responsible for the conduct of other people or retailers, or for any dispute between you and a retailer about its products, prices, availability or terms.
Indemnity: You indemnify Dad’s Dinner against claims by third parties (including reasonable legal costs) that arise because content you uploaded infringed someone else’s rights, or because you used the Platform unlawfully, except to the extent that the claim results from our own negligence or misconduct.
This section continues to apply after these Terms end.
12. Complaints and disputes
Talk to us first: If you have a complaint, email nico@
Mediation or arbitration: If we cannot resolve it, we may both agree to refer the dispute to mediation, or to arbitration under the rules of the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa (AFSA). Either step needs both of us to agree in writing at the time. The mediator or arbitrator must be agreed by both of us or, if we cannot agree, appointed by AFSA.
Your other options: You may at any time take your complaint to the National Consumer Commission, a provincial consumer court, an ombud with jurisdiction, the Information Regulator (for privacy matters) or a court with jurisdiction.
13. Ending your use
You: You may stop using the Platform at any time. You can delete your account in the app under Settings → Delete account. Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone. Our Account deletion page explains what is deleted and what is kept. Remember to cancel any subscription in your store account.
Unused accounts: If you have not used the app for 2 years and have no active subscription, we delete your account, emailing you 30 days before if we have your email address. Our Privacy policy explains this in section 10.
Us: We may restrict, suspend or close your account if you materially breach these Terms, if we reasonably believe your use creates a security, fraud or legal risk, or if the law requires it. Where practicable, we will give you notice first and a chance to put things right.
14. Notices
We accept legal notices at nico@
15. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms, for example when we change features or the law changes. We will tell you about material changes in the app or by email at least 30 days before they take effect, unless a change is needed sooner for legal or security reasons. If you do not accept a change, you may stop using the Platform, delete your account and cancel your subscription before the change takes effect. If you are on an annual plan, a change that materially disadvantages you applies to you only from your next renewal, unless it is needed sooner for legal or security reasons. The date at the top shows when these Terms last changed. Previous versions are available on request.
16. Company information
- Name and legal status: Dad Whats for Dinner (Pty) Ltd, a private company registered in South Africa
- Registration number: 2025/616693/07
- Directors: Nico Barnard (Chief Executive Officer) and Richard Barnard (Chief Technology Officer)
- VAT: Not registered for VAT
- Registered address (also our physical address for service of legal documents): Unit 51 Amsterdam Apartments, 83 Jacaranda Avenue, Randburg, Gauteng, 2188
- Email: nico@
dadwhatsfordinner.co.za - Telephone: +27 71 524 9766
- Website: https://www.dadwhatsfordinner.co.za/
- Codes of conduct and self-regulatory or dispute-resolution bodies: None
17. General
Whole agreement: These Terms, our Privacy policy and, for purchases, the app store’s terms are the whole agreement between you and us about the Platform.
Events beyond control: Neither of us is responsible for failing to perform because of events beyond our reasonable control, such as load-shedding, natural disasters, pandemics, war, unrest or legal restrictions. The affected obligation is suspended while the event lasts, and we will each try to limit the delay.
No waiver: If we do not enforce a right straight away, we do not give it up.
Severability: If any part of these Terms is found invalid, the rest continues to apply.
Consumer law: No term of these Terms is intended to breach the CPA or its regulations. Any such term applies only to the extent the law allows.
Governing law: South African law governs these Terms.