Privacy Policy

We collect information you provide to us directly and information that is gathered automatically when you use our services.

Information you provide directly:

• Account information: Your name and email address when you create an account or subscribe to our newsletter.
• Order information: Shipping address, billing address, phone number, and order history. This is necessary to process and fulfill your purchases.
• Payment information: Payment card details are collected and processed exclusively by our payment processor, Stripe. FSD never sees, stores, or has access to your full card number, CVV, or other sensitive payment credentials.
• Communications: Messages you send us via email, the contact form, or live chat, including your name, email address, and message content.
• Newsletter subscription: Your email address when you opt in to receive our newsletter or promotional updates.

Information collected automatically:

• Usage data: Pages visited, products viewed, time spent on pages, referring URLs, browser type, device type, screen resolution, operating system, and general browsing behavior. This data helps us improve the shopping experience.
• IP address: Collected for fraud prevention, security, and approximate geographic location to calculate shipping estimates.
• Device identifiers: Information about the device you use to access our services, including hardware model, operating system version, and unique device identifiers for analytics purposes.

We use cookies and similar technologies to operate our website and improve your experience. Cookies are small text files stored on your device by your browser.

Essential cookies:

• Session management: Required to keep you logged in and maintain your shopping cart across pages. These cookies are strictly necessary for the site to function and cannot be disabled.
• Preferences: Remember your settings such as theme preference (light/dark mode), currency, and language.

Analytics cookies:

• Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics (GA4) to understand how visitors interact with our site, including page views, session duration, and traffic sources. Google Analytics collects data anonymously and does not personally identify you. You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

You can control and disable non-essential cookies through your browser settings. Disabling cookies may affect certain features of our website, such as the shopping cart.

With your explicit consent, we may send you push notifications through our progressive web application (PWA) or mobile app. These notifications are used exclusively for:

• Order status updates (confirmation, shipping, delivery)
• Important account notifications (password changes, security alerts)

Push notifications are entirely optional. You can enable or disable them at any time through your device settings or browser notification preferences. We do not use push notifications for marketing or promotional purposes without your separate, explicit consent.

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• Process and fulfill your orders, including coordinating with Producers for packaging and shipment.
• Send transactional communications: order confirmations, shipping notifications, delivery updates, and receipts.
• Respond to your inquiries and provide customer support.
• Send newsletters and promotional emails, but only if you have explicitly opted in. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in every email.
• Improve our website, products, and services through analytics and usage patterns.
• Prevent fraud, detect abuse, and maintain the security of our platform.
• Comply with legal obligations and enforce our terms.
• Calculate shipping costs and delivery estimates based on your location.

We share your personal information only as necessary to fulfill your orders and operate our business. We work with the following third-party service providers:

• Producers: We share your shipping name and address with the Producer(s) fulfilling your order so they can ship your products. Producers do not receive your payment information, email address, or account details.
• Stripe (payment processing): Stripe processes all payment transactions on our platform. Stripe is PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant. Their use of your payment data is governed by Stripe's Privacy Policy.
• Vercel (hosting): Our website is hosted on Vercel. Vercel may collect server logs including IP addresses and request metadata for performance and security purposes. See Vercel's Privacy Policy.
• Google Analytics (analytics): We use Google Analytics to understand site traffic and user behavior. Data collected is anonymized and cannot be used to personally identify you. See Google's Privacy Policy.
• Shipping carriers (UPS, USPS, FedEx): We share your name and shipping address with carriers for delivery purposes.
• Shippo (shipping management): We use Shippo to generate shipping labels and manage shipping insurance. Shippo receives the minimum information necessary to create labels.

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your personal information, including:

• SSL/TLS encryption on all pages, ensuring data transmitted between your browser and our servers is encrypted.
• Secure payment processing through Stripe, which is PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant (the highest level of certification).
• Access controls limiting who within our organization can view customer information, on a need-to-know basis.
• Regular security reviews of our infrastructure, codebase, and third-party integrations.

While we take reasonable precautions to protect your data, no method of internet transmission or electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security. If we become aware of a data breach that may affect your personal information, we will notify you in accordance with applicable law.

We retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this policy:

• Account data: Retained for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services.
• Order history: Retained for a minimum of 7 years for tax, accounting, and legal compliance purposes.
• Marketing data: Retained until you unsubscribe or request deletion.
• Analytics data: Aggregated and anonymized data may be retained indefinitely. Individual session data is retained according to the retention settings of our analytics provider (Google Analytics).

If you request account deletion, we will delete your personal data within 30 days, except where we are required by law to retain certain records (e.g., tax records, order history for accounting). You can request deletion by emailing support@foodstoredirect.com.

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal information:

• Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correction: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Deletion: Request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal retention requirements.
• Opt-out: Unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time via the link in every email, or by contacting us.
• Data portability: Request your data in a commonly used, machine-readable format (e.g., CSV or JSON).
• Restrict processing: Request that we limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
• Withdraw consent: Where processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@foodstoredirect.com. We will respond to your request within 30 days. We may ask you to verify your identity before processing your request to protect your account security.

If you are a California resident, you have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), including:

• Right to know: You may request information about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the sources of that information, the business purposes for collecting it, and the categories of third parties with whom we share it.
• Right to delete: You may request deletion of personal information we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions (e.g., legal compliance, completing a transaction).
• Right to opt out of sale: We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We do not share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.
• Right to non-discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your CCPA rights. You will receive the same quality of service and pricing regardless of whether you exercise your rights.

To exercise your CCPA rights, contact us at support@foodstoredirect.com with the subject line “CCPA Request.” We will verify your identity and respond within 45 days as required by law.

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or Switzerland, you have rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and equivalent legislation:

• Legal basis for processing: We process your data based on: (a) your consent (e.g., newsletter subscription), (b) performance of a contract (e.g., order fulfillment), (c) our legitimate interests (e.g., fraud prevention, site improvement), or (d) legal obligations.
• Data transfers: Your data is processed and stored in the United States. By using our services, you acknowledge that your data will be transferred to and processed in the United States, which may have different data protection laws than your country.
• Right to lodge a complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority if you believe we have not complied with applicable data protection laws.

All rights described in Section 8 (“Your Rights”) above apply equally to GDPR-covered individuals. Contact us at support@foodstoredirect.com with the subject line “GDPR Request” to exercise your rights.

Our services are not directed to individuals under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under 13 years of age. If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately at support@foodstoredirect.com. We will promptly delete such information from our records.

You must be at least 18 years of age to create an account or place an order on Food Store Direct.

Some browsers transmit “Do Not Track” (DNT) signals to websites. Because there is no universally accepted standard for how to respond to DNT signals, we do not currently respond to them. However, you can control tracking through your browser's cookie settings and by using the Google Analytics opt-out tools described in Section 2.

Our website may contain links to third-party websites, including producer websites, social media platforms, and payment processors. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of these external sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party website you visit.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, or legal requirements. When we make material changes, we will update the “Effective date” at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you via email or a prominent notice on our website.

We encourage you to review this page periodically. Your continued use of our services after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, contact us:

We aim to respond to all privacy-related inquiries within 30 days.