Custom Printed Paper Salad Bowls.

Larger than you would expect, because salad is sized by bulk rather than weight.

Leaves are almost entirely air. A portion weighing very little takes up a lot of container, which is why salad bowls run 24, 32 and 48 oz where a soup bowl serving a comparable meal is 12 or 16 oz.

The variable that changes it most is what else is in the salad. Chicken, grains, beans and roasted vegetables are dense and displace far less volume per gram than leaves. A composed grain bowl and a leaf-led salad at the same price point need noticeably different containers.

Send us your actual build — ideally a made-up portion — and we will size from that rather than from a menu description.

Send the dressing separately. It is the single most effective thing you can do, and nothing about the container competes with it.

Dressed leaves begin wilting immediately — the salt and acid draw water out of the leaf and it goes limp. Twenty minutes in a delivery bag is enough to turn a good salad soft, and no bowl, lid or coating prevents that.

A separate dressing pot means the customer dresses on arrival and eats the salad as the kitchen made it.

Two details worth getting right on the pot: portion it generously, because under-dressed is the most common complaint, and make sure the lid actually seals — dressing leaking into a delivery bag is worse than no pot at all.

Beyond that, keep produce properly chilled before packing, and avoid packing hot components against leaves.