Ella's Pantry

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 6 March 2026

1. Who We Are

Ella's Pantry ("we", "us", "our") operates the website www.ellaspantry.co.uk. We are a recipe discovery and meal planning platform based in the United Kingdom. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect your personal information when you use our website and services.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide

  • Account registration: name, email address, and password when you create an account.
  • Profile information: optional bio and profile picture.
  • User content: recipe ratings, reviews, saved recipes, meal plans, and recipe collections you create.
  • Images: photos you upload when using our "What's In My Fridge" feature.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

  • Usage data: pages visited, recipes viewed, search queries, and interactions with the site, collected via Google Analytics.
  • Device information: browser type, operating system, and screen resolution.
  • Cookies and similar technologies: see Section 6 below.

2.3 Information from Third Parties

If you sign in using Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile picture from your Google account. We do not access any other Google account data.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use your personal information to:

  • Create and manage your account.
  • Provide personalised features such as saved recipes, meal plans, and collections.
  • Display your ratings, reviews, and profile information on the site.
  • Process images you submit to our AI-powered features (e.g. "What's In My Fridge").
  • Analyse usage patterns to improve our website and services.
  • Display relevant advertisements via Google AdSense.
  • Ensure the security and integrity of our platform.

4. Legal Basis for Processing (UK GDPR)

We process your personal data on the following legal bases:

  • Contract: processing necessary to provide you with an account and our services.
  • Legitimate interests: analysing usage to improve our website, preventing fraud, and ensuring security.
  • Consent: where we rely on your consent (e.g. for analytics cookies), you may withdraw it at any time.

5. Third-Party Services

We share data with the following third-party services:

  • Google Analytics (GA4): collects anonymised usage data to help us understand how visitors use the site.
  • Google AdSense: serves advertisements and may use cookies to personalise ads.
  • Google OAuth: if you choose to sign in with Google, your authentication is handled by Google's identity services.
  • Anthropic (Claude AI): powers our recipe generation, ingredient substitution, and "What's In My Fridge" features. Images and text you submit to these features are sent to Anthropic for processing. Please refer to Anthropic's Privacy Policy for details on how they handle data.

6. Cookies

We use the following types of cookies:

  • Essential cookies: required for authentication and session management. These cannot be disabled.
  • Analytics cookies: Google Analytics cookies that help us understand how visitors interact with the site.
  • Advertising cookies: set by Google AdSense to serve and measure advertisements.

We also use your browser's local storage to remember your preferred unit system (metric or imperial).

7. Data Retention

We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, all associated data (profile, reviews, ratings, saved recipes, meal plans, and collections) is permanently removed from our systems. Analytics data collected by Google is retained in accordance with Google's data retention policies.

8. Your Rights

Under the UK GDPR, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

  • Access: request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
  • Rectification: request correction of inaccurate data. You can update your profile information in your account settings.
  • Erasure: request deletion of your data. You can delete your account at any time from your profile settings.
  • Restriction: request that we limit how we process your data.
  • Portability: request a copy of your data in a portable format.
  • Objection: object to processing based on legitimate interests.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at the address provided in Section 11.

9. Data Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your personal information. Passwords are hashed using industry-standard algorithms and are never stored in plain text. All data is transmitted over HTTPS. However, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

10. Children's Privacy

Our services are not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that we have collected data from a child under 13, we will delete it promptly.

11. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your data protection rights, please contact us at: privacy@ellaspantry.co.uk

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated "Last updated" date. We encourage you to review this page periodically.