Grow the orders that pay you most.

Not unless you are certified under the scheme. Dubai Municipality’s guidance is explicit that its calorie declaration section is for establishments that want to take part, and that the requirements are not mandatory unless the establishment is certified. Declaring calories on an online ordering platform or in a social post is voluntary on the same basis. The mandatory half of that document is a different thing entirely, and it catches far more restaurants: the rules on claims, which bind the moment you say anything about calories, a nutrient or health in your labelling, presentation or advertising. Most operators have the two the wrong way round.

Only if you can prove it, and the word healthy has one route in Dubai. Every food claim has to be substantiated: the establishment must be able to justify it and hand Dubai Municipality the documentation on request. Claims are held to the UAE standard for permitted health and nutrition claims, which sets real thresholds, so low fat means no more than 3g of fat per 100g for solids and a high fibre claim needs at least 6g per 100g. The Eat Healthy, Live Healthy certification is the only permitted route to a healthy claim, whether it is stated, suggested or implied. A picture or an icon counts as a claim as well, which is where menu photography usually gets caught.

Not on its own terms alone, and since 11 February 2026 there is a named instrument over the arrangement. Ministerial Decision No. 32 of 2026 does not ban exclusivity. It exempts an exclusive deal between a platform and a restaurant from the competition prohibitions only while six conditions hold. Among them: the agreement is entered into freely, with no coercion, retaliatory measures or penalties where the restaurant deals with other platforms; the exclusive obligation runs no longer than twelve months; no more than 10% of a platform’s listed merchants may be on exclusive terms; the restaurant stays free to partner with emerging or small and medium platforms; and no clause may prevent it joining a competitor once the term ends. The Decision was issued on 11 February 2026 and its exemption runs twelve months from then unless a new Decision renews it. What your own agreement says is a question for your commercial and legal advice.

Five are worth naming: Talabat, Deliveroo, noon Food, Careem Food and Keeta. Keeta, Meituan’s international delivery brand, launched in Dubai on 27 September 2025 and went on to cover the emirates, which is why a plan built on a four-app roster is already a year behind. Talabat now markets dine-in deals paid through its own app as well, so the intermediary reaches the table and not only the door. Which of them earns a listing is an outlet-by-outlet decision, and it is worth re-asking each quarter, because the set moves.

Yes, and not as a replacement for them. The apps carry real demand and a new outlet in Dubai is listed before it is marketed, so leaving them is rarely the right call. What a direct channel settles is different: the customer is yours, the ranking is your own search and social work rather than a platform’s, and the record of the order sits in a system you control. The bar is high, because your ordering page competes with an app the diner already installed and already trusts with a card, which makes it a build question as much as a marketing one. The build is answered on eCommerce website development. If what you actually want is your own delivery app, read on-demand app development first.

Yes, and the permit sits with the person who publishes. The NMA advertiser permit is issued to the individual, and it covers promotion whether or not money changed hands, so a gifted meal is the textbook case rather than an edge case. A creator visiting from outside the UAE applies through a licensed advertising agency here. We write the requirement into the brief rather than discovering it after a post is live, and the detail sits on influencer marketing.

Profitability here is decided by the channel mix more than by the order count. Two outlets can report the same revenue and keep very different amounts of it, because how much of that revenue is intermediated, the rent band and the cost to serve each order are what settle the answer. That is why the first piece of work is a channel read rather than a campaign: you cannot price a marketing plan against a revenue figure nobody has split by channel yet. We publish no retainer band and will not quote one before we have seen where the orders arrive. What moves the figure is the number of outlets, how much of the revenue is intermediated today, and whether a direct ordering path exists at all.