iFood Food Photography: A Practical Shooting and Upload Guide

What iFood actually publishes about photo specs

iFood does not publish pixel dimensions, file size limits or accepted file formats as a public specification page for merchants. There is no official document you can point to that says 'images must be X by Y pixels.' Anyone quoting a fixed resolution as an iFood requirement is repeating a number the platform has not published.

That means the upload screen inside the iFood merchant portal is the source of truth. When you add or replace a dish photo, the portal shows what it accepts and how the crop behaves. Take a screenshot of that screen the first time you upload, note the aspect ratio of the preview frame, and use it as your internal standard for every future shoot. If the portal changes, your screenshot will show it.

Two practical rules survive regardless of what the portal says. First, upload a real photo of the actual dish you sell, not a stock image or a different plate from the same kitchen. Second, shoot at a resolution high enough that the platform can downscale without softening: a modern phone at its default photo setting is usually plenty, but avoid zooming in digitally or cropping hard before upload.

• Check the upload screen in the iFood merchant portal before every batch of new photos
• Note the preview frame's aspect ratio and match it when you crop
• Keep the original uncropped file so you can re-export if the portal changes
• Never upload a photo of a dish you do not currently sell

Plan the shoot around your real menu

The shoot should follow the menu, not the other way around. List every item that will appear on iFood and group them by how they photograph: bowls and plates seen from above, stacked burgers and sandwiches seen from the side, drinks in tall glasses, desserts that need a close crop. A Brazilian lunch counter with rice, beans and grilled meat needs different angles than a pizza shop or an açaí bowl stand.

Shoot each dish within an hour of plating. Steam, melting cheese and condensation on cold drinks all disappear quickly, and a re-shot dish on a different day will not match the first batch in color or portion. Plate the exact portion a customer receives, including the sides and garnishes that come with it, because a photo that shows more food than the delivery box contains is a complaint waiting to happen.

For most dishes, a camera angle between 30 and 45 degrees above the table reads best in a small preview: you see the top of the food and the height of the stack. Use a straight overhead angle (90 degrees) for bowls, pizzas and plates where the arrangement is the point. Use eye level, roughly 0 to 10 degrees, for tall burgers, layered desserts and drinks. Keep the phone or camera about 30 to 50 cm from the plate to avoid the wide-angle distortion that makes the front of a dish look oversized.

• Write the shot list straight from the iFood menu, grouped by dish shape
• Plate the exact delivered portion, sides included
• Use 30 to 45 degrees for most plates, 90 degrees overhead for bowls and pizzas, eye level for tall items
• Keep 30 to 50 cm distance and step back rather than using digital zoom
• Shoot all dishes in one session so color and light stay consistent

Light, background and color that survive a thumbnail

Most iFood browsing happens on a phone, so judge every photo at thumbnail size before you approve it. A dish that looks rich on a laptop can turn into a gray blob at 80 pixels wide. The fix is contrast: a light or mid-tone background, a plate that separates from the table, and a main ingredient with a clear color against the rest of the dish.

Daylight from a window at a slight angle to the plate is the simplest reliable light. Put the window to the side, not behind the dish, and use a white sheet of paper or a foam board on the opposite side to bounce light back into the shadows. Avoid direct midday sun, which blows out white rice, cheese and cream. If you shoot at night, one diffused light source above and slightly to the side beats several small lamps that create mixed color casts.

Keep the background plain: a wooden board, a neutral countertop, a clean cloth. Remove cutlery clutter, branded napkins, price tags and anything with text. A busy background competes with the food at thumbnail size and can look like a different dish entirely.

Crop for the square preview and keep the food intact

Delivery apps commonly display dish photos in a square or near-square frame, so plan a 1:1 crop for every image even if you also keep a wider version for your own channels. Center the plate and leave a small margin around the rim; a bowl cropped at the edge looks like a mistake, not a style choice.

Crop from the original file, not from a photo you already cropped for Instagram. The 4:5 Instagram crop and the 9:16 story crop both cut different parts of the frame, and re-cropping a re-crop softens the image. Export a fresh square from the original for iFood, and keep separate exports for your website menu, Google Business Profile and printed material.

Check the square crop on your own phone at small size before uploading. If you cannot tell what the dish is within a second, reshoot with the food larger in frame or simplify the garnish. Text overlays, watermarks and promotional badges belong nowhere near a dish photo on a delivery listing.

• Export a fresh 1:1 square from the original file for iFood
• Center the plate with a small margin so nothing important is cut
• Judge the crop at thumbnail size on a phone
• Remove text, watermarks and promo badges from dish photos

Review pitfalls and keeping listings accurate

The most common reason a dish photo gets rejected or flagged is not technical quality but accuracy. Photos that show ingredients the dish does not contain, portions larger than what is delivered, or a completely different plating style invite complaints and can lead to the image being removed. Shoot what the kitchen actually sends out on a normal service day, not a special presentation.

Consistency matters across the listing. If one dish is shot on a dark slate board and the next on a white tablecloth, the menu looks assembled from different restaurants. Pick one surface and one lighting setup and apply it to the whole menu. Update photos when a recipe or portion changes, and remove old images rather than leaving them in the listing alongside the new ones.

Keep your own record of what was uploaded and when. If a photo is removed or a menu item is paused, you will know which file to re-export and which dish needs a new shoot. This is also where a photo kit helps: FoodPhoto takes a real photo of your own dish and improves light, background and crop for menus, delivery apps and social while keeping the food as it is, and delivers each photo as a kit of sizes. It cannot guarantee approval by iFood or any other platform, so always confirm the final image on the upload screen.