SOP: Hero Meals Beta Program

Overview: How the Hero meals beta program runs internally, who's eligible each round, what customers experience on delivery day, and how agents should handle customer questions about it.

Related SOPs/Documents:

• What is the Thistle Hero meals beta program? (KB article)

Program Goal

Policy or Process Overview: The Hero meals beta program exists to gauge customer sentiment and enthusiasm for new dishes before they're added to the regular Thistle menu. This specific program will garner feedback on our Hero meals, which are very nutritionally sound meals with more protein than our standard Thistle meals, and hope to launch in late 2026-2027. The program isn't meant to catch basic recipe or cooking issues.

What we do:

• Use this context if a customer asks why we're testing new dishes before adding them to the menu, or whether these are unfinished or experimental recipes. You can reassure them every beta meal has already been through our standard recipe development and internal testing process.
• Keep eligibility and selection explanations general. Don't share internal target numbers or selection criteria.

Enrollment Process

Policy or Process Overview: 

• We email customers asking if they'd like to receive free meals in exchange for feedback. 
• Customers opt in by filling out a survey (sent on 9/3/26), giving us a yes/no on the overall program and answering a few questions about meal preferences, including restrictions that aren't already on their profile (for example, an aversion to tofu or pork). 
• We reach out at least two weeks before the first beta service. When beta meals are ready to be delivered, we email eligible customers (those open to the dish in question) asking a) if they'll be receiving a delivery on that date and b) if they're interested in receiving the dish, including a description and photo. 
  • ATTENTION CS: Orders are locking in on Thursday, September 10th. If a customer writes in after this date asking for meals on 9/13 or 9/14, tell them it's too late to be included in this round of meal testing, but we may reach out again in the future for another round of meal testing.
• Customers who opt in are added to a CSV and uploaded to Thistle web to create their deliveries.

What we do:

• If a customer asks how sign-up works, explain there are two steps: an initial opt-in survey, then a follow-up email closer to each delivery confirming interest in that specific dish.
• If a customer asks whether they can send the invite to a friend, yes, ONLY IF: their friend must be an active Thistle customer with no known food allergies to be eligible.: https://form.typeform.com/to/MA9nWDh2.

What Customers Should Expect on Delivery Day

Policy or Process Overview: Customers will only see images of these meals in Upcoming Deliveries, but not the pop-up window with nutritional information. On delivery day, the meal shows up alongside the rest of their regular order, with an accurate SKU on the bag tag and a complete, accurate meal label, the same as any paid Thistle meal.

What we do:

• If a customer says they received a meal they don't recognize or didn't see coming, check whether they opted into the beta program before assuming it's a fulfillment error. This is expected behavior for enrolled customers, not a packing mistake.
• Reassure customers that the meal's label and ingredient information are complete and accurate, even though it won't appear in their app ahead of delivery.

Target Volume & Eligibility

Policy or Process Overview: Each round targets at least 300 pieces of feedback. We estimate a 75% feedback rate, meaning we need to send meals to roughly 400 customers, split roughly 50/50 across our two production facilities. We start each round with an outreach pool of 1,000 customers and ramp up depending on the initial response. We also aim to invite a representative mix of customer types by protein preference and tenure.

What we do:

• Treat these figures as internal info only. 
• If a customer asks why they weren't selected for a specific round, explain that selection depends on factors like production facility, dietary fit, and getting a representative customer mix, not anything personal to their account.

How We Measure Success

Policy or Process Overview: Feedback from this program directly decides whether a dish moves on to the regular Thistle menu. A dish needs a strong average rating from participating customers to move forward, and not every beta dish will make it. That's expected and part of why we run the program.

What we do:

• If a customer asks what happens with their feedback or whether a dish will return, let them know their rating directly informs whether that dish gets added to the regular menu, and that not every dish that goes through the beta ends up there.

How to Handle Customer Questions

Policy or Process Overview: Most customer-facing questions about the beta program (cost, sign-up, feedback links, dietary accommodations) are already covered in our KB article.

What we do:

• Use relevant content from our FAQs on the Hero meals beta program.
• For anything outside that article's scope, message Hannah T.

Tags: #herobeta, #betaprogram, #newmeals

Related content (confirmed policy duplicates only): What is the Thistle Hero meals beta program? (KB article) — restates that meals are free, sign-up is by invitation/opt-in, and feedback is submitted via an emailed survey link.