AI food photos on Deliveroo and Just Eat: what is allowed in 2026

Deliveroo and Just Eat photo rules compared

Deliveroo: the rule, in its own words

Deliveroo's help page for uploading photos says: "AI-generated images are not permitted on Deliveroo. Please only upload authentic images of the food or products you sell."

Its partner policies add a detailed clause that takes effect on 9 October 2026. In short:

• You must not upload any image "created, in whole or in part, using generative artificial intelligence".
• You must not use an existing image that AI has substantially changed: a new or replaced menu item, added, removed or changed ingredients, a different portion size or packaging, or anything else that materially changes what is shown.
• A label does not make it acceptable. The policy says it applies "even if the image is labelled as AI-generated or AI-manipulated".
• You may use AI for "minor technical enhancements to a genuine photograph": cropping, rotating or resizing, small adjustments to lighting, colour, contrast or sharpness, and reducing noise or blur. The enhancement must not add, remove, replace or materially change anything shown in the original photograph.
• Deliveroo can ask you for the original photograph, or for information about how the image was made or edited.

What that means for AI photo tools

Most AI food photo tools, MenuPhotoAI among them, do not adjust your photo. They make a new image of your dish with a generative model, usually with a new background and surface. Deliveroo's policy covers images created in whole or in part with generative AI, and it makes no exception for an image that started from a real photo.

We make the images. The decision to upload them to a platform, and the responsibility for that platform's rules, is yours. If you list on Deliveroo, read the policy before you decide. It is linked at the end of this page.

Whatever you choose, keep your original photos. Deliveroo can ask for them, and it lists "obvious signs of image editing" among its reasons for rejecting a photo.

Options that stay inside the Deliveroo policy

Three routes, from the most to the least effort.

• Book Deliveroo's photoshoot. It has two packages: Silver, with 1 cover image and 15 item photos, and Gold, with 1 cover image and 25 item photos. The price is not public; ask in Partner Hub.
• Shoot it yourself and correct by hand. Put the dish by a window, on a clean surface, with one dish in the centre of the frame. Then use a manual editor such as Snapseed (free) to crop, brighten and fix the colour. Those are the kinds of change the policy describes as minor.
• If Menu Manager offers an enhanced version, you can accept it. Deliveroo offers this for some photos that fail its quality check. You accept it or replace the photo. Deliveroo does not say how it makes this version.

What Deliveroo rejects

Deliveroo checks the quality of item photos and then approves them, rejects them with a reason, or sends them to a person. The documented reasons for rejection are:

• a cluttered background
• a blurry image
• poor colour
• ingredients shown instead of the dish
• a person in the image
• obvious signs of image editing
• poor lighting
• text or images laid over the photo
• poor framing: the item is not fully visible, too small, or not centred

Just Eat: no AI rule that we could find, and one clear principle

We searched Just Eat's UK partner help centre and found no statement about AI images. Websites that say Just Eat bans them give no official source. What Just Eat does ask is simple: show the product exactly as it is served or sold.

Its other rules: dish photos are 4:3 landscape with no borders, well lit and in focus; no people or hands; no text over the dish; photos you own. The header image is 2:1 landscape.

So Just Eat does not say whether a photo improved with AI is acceptable. If you use one, you decide, and the risk is yours. The closer the result stays to what the customer gets, the smaller that risk. An image made from a text description is not a photo of your product, and we would not upload one.

A rule can change. Deliveroo's did. Keep your original photos for every dish, so that you can switch back in a day if Just Eat follows.

If you sell on both

Most UK restaurants on Deliveroo are also on Just Eat or Uber Eats. The simplest setup is two sets of photos from one shoot.

1. Photograph every dish once, well: by a window, same angle, same surface.
2. For Deliveroo, hand-corrected originals stay inside its policy.
3. For Just Eat and Uber Eats, you can choose to run the same originals through an AI tool for a cleaner background and a consistent look. Neither platform has said that it accepts this.
4. Name the files so that the two sets cannot be mixed up.

Why the effort pays

Deliveroo says that menus with photos can increase orders by 25%. Just Eat says that items with images go into baskets four times more often, and that an item with a photo gets on average 16% more orders. Both are the platforms' own figures. Neither says the photo has to be made by AI or by a professional. A clear, honest phone photo counts.

Tools, and where each one fits

What we would do

1. Photograph every dish once: daylight from a window, clean surface, dish in the centre, landscape.
2. For Deliveroo, read the policy and decide. Hand-corrected originals stay inside it. If Menu Manager offers an enhanced version and you like it, you can accept it.
3. For Just Eat and Uber Eats, sign up to MenuPhotoAI, pick the app in delivery mode, and upload the first three photos. You have 5 free photos. Check each result against the real dish.
4. Keep every original. Platform rules on AI are changing, and the original is your proof and your fallback.

Questions

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