The order of the categories on your GrabFood menu is yours to set, and it decides what a customer sees before they start to scroll. Grab Vietnam's help centre gives the order it recommends: new dishes, best sellers and dishes on promotion first1, then the main dishes2, then sides, accompaniments and drinks3. The help centres of Grab's other markets explain how to move categories, not which order to choose, and no Grab page says by how much the order changes sales. Research on menus does show that where a dish sits changes how often it is chosen, so the top of your menu is worth deciding on purpose.
This guide covers Grab in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. The steps are the same everywhere; only the names of a few buttons change from one market's help centre to the next.
What is a category on a GrabFood menu?
A category is a heading that groups dishes. Grab's Singapore help centre describes it as a group of items, such as main dishes, side dishes, desserts or drinks, "useful for organising your menu items, so consumers can easily find what they want"4. Malaysia's help centre uses almost the same words5. Thailand's adds a tip: organise items into appropriate categories, such as main courses, beverages and desserts6. Indonesia's guide calls a category a feature that groups food of the same kind, to make the menu easier to put together7.
Two details change how you use them. A category can have its own hours: when you create one, you select the time it is available on your menu8, so a breakfast category does not need to sit at the top of your menu all day. And a category takes its dishes with it: Grab's steps warn that confirming the deletion permanently removes the category and all its items9. Move the dishes you want to keep before you delete a category.
What to do: write down your categories as a customer would say them (rice, noodles, drinks), not as your kitchen names its stations.
In what order should the categories go?
Grab Vietnam answers this one directly. In its help centre article on setting up a menu, Grab tells restaurants to arrange their categories in an order that draws customers in10:
- New dishes, best sellers, or dishes on promotion1.
- The main dish categories2.
- Side dishes, accompaniments and drinks3.
Grab publishes this advice in Vietnamese, as an image in its help centre. The other five markets' help centres show how to move categories and leave the order to you. The reasoning travels well, because a customer browses your store as one list from top to bottom: the first category is the one every visitor sees, and the last one is seen only by those who scroll that far.
What to do: make your first category short, with the dishes you most want to sell, whether they already sell well, are new, or carry an offer. Then put the main dishes before everything that goes with them.
Why does the position of a dish change what customers order?
The research is about dishes inside a category, not about whole categories, and it points one way.
In two studies of menu positions published in June 201111, one in a laboratory and one with real customers in a café in Tel Aviv12, items placed at the beginning or the end of the list of their category options were up to twice as popular as when they were placed in the centre of the list13. Across both studies, the authors found that placing an item at the beginning or end of its category increased its popularity by about 20%14.
A closer test of delivery apps came in 2023. In the United Kingdom, 9,003 adults who use food delivery platforms chose a meal on a simulated delivery platform15, in a study published on 19 May 202316. Moving dishes up or down within their categories changed what went into the basket: listing lower energy dishes first within each category cut the energy of the basket by 88 kcal compared with a random order17. Their aim was healthier choices, but the finding for a restaurant is the same: the order inside a category changes what is chosen.
What no study we found has tested is the order of whole categories. The same trial says so: dishes were reordered within their categories, but the order of the categories themselves was not changed, starters first, then mains18. The authors also note that customers may adapt and learn to scroll further to find the dishes they like19. A wider review of the research on where food is placed found that the change worked in sixteen of eighteen studies20.
What to do: inside each category, put the dish you most want to sell first. Keep the last place for a good dish too, not for the one you would rather nobody noticed.
How do you choose what goes at the top?
Use your own numbers rather than a guess. In Singapore, Grab's Insights show your gross sales, total orders and best-seller items21. In Thailand, Menu Insights ranks your top-performing items by units sold, sales and share of sales, over up to 90 days22, and suggests popular combinations of items you can turn into combos23. Grab Vietnam announced its menu analytics on 22 July 202024 and said what they are for: improving the menu by changing photos, descriptions and even the position of dishes to suit customers25.
Look at two lists before you decide: the dishes that sell most, and the dishes that leave you the most per order. A dish that is on both lists belongs at the top. A new dish or a dish on promotion can join it there for as long as it is new or on offer, as Grab Vietnam suggests1.
Then change one thing at a time. Move a category, leave it for a few weeks, and compare the same report before and after. If several things change at once, you will not know which one worked.
How do you rearrange categories in the GrabMerchant app?
Grab's Singapore help centre gives the steps in the GrabMerchant app. Tap the Menu tile, tap the three dots at the top right corner of your screen26, then tap Reorder catalogue27. Tap and hold the three lines icon beside the category you want to move and shift it to its new place28, then tap Done to confirm the reorder29. On the GrabMerchant portal, go to Menu, then Menu Overview, and click the three dots beside Categories30. To move dishes inside a category on the portal, click the three dots on that category and choose Rearrange items31.
The other markets describe the same tool. Malaysia's help centre reaches it through the (+) button and a step named Rearrange32. The Philippines' version reads: tap the three dots, select Reorder catalogue, and drag items or categories33. Indonesia's calls the step Susun ulang katalog34, reorder catalogue. The Philippine help centre adds a reminder worth following everywhere: refresh your app to see the changes35. Then open your store in the Grab app as a customer would, and check the order there.
How many categories should a GrabFood menu have?
No Grab page in the sources this guide relies on sets a number, and the research we found gives no threshold for a delivery menu. What Grab does say is what categories are for: so that customers can easily find what they want4. That is the test to apply.
- A category with a single dish is usually better merged into a neighbour.
- A category so long that its last dishes sit far down the screen can be split, for example rice dishes and noodle dishes instead of one list of mains.
- A category that only applies at some hours, such as breakfast, can be given its own hours8 instead of taking space all day.
What should you check this week?
- Your first category: does it hold your best sellers, a new dish or a dish on offer?
- The order after it: mains before sides, accompaniments and drinks.
- The first dish of each category: is it the one you most want to sell?
- The last dish of each category: a good dish, not a forgotten one.
- Your Insights: which dishes sell most, and which ones nobody orders.
- Your store in the customer app, after a refresh, to see what customers see.
Kontimo helps people running restaurants on Grab read their menu each month, explained in plain language: which dishes sell, which never do, and what to change first.
