Effective Date: 19th June 2025
We’ve updated our privacy policy on 19th June 2025 to make it clearer, more transparent, and easier to understand. Your trust is the most important ingredient at WHK, and we’re committed to protecting your privacy
At Whole Hearty Kitchen (WHK), your trust is the most important ingredient in everything we do. I understand how important it is to have clear, honest information you can rely on.
This policy explains what personal information we collect when you visit www.wholeheartykitchen.co.uk, why we collect it, and how we keep it safe. We’ve written it to be as clear and straightforward as possible, without confusing jargon.
By using our website, you agree to the way we handle your data as described here.
Our website address is https://www.wholeheartykitchen.co.uk.
Who we are
Our website is Whole Hearty Kitchen, and our address is https://www.wholeheartykitchen.co.uk. For the purposes of data protection law, the Data Controller is Whole Hearty Kitchen. If you have any questions about your privacy, you can always email me at Michelle(at)wholeheartykitchen.co.uk.
The Information We Collect and Why
1. When You Leave a Comment
- What we collect: The name, email address, and comment you provide. We also collect your IP address and browser details.
- Why we collect it: To display your comment and to protect our site from spam. Our spam-filtering service (Akismet) checks comments to keep our community safe and supportive.
- Our lawful basis: Legitimate Interest (to prevent spam and enable community discussion).
If you use the Gravatar service, an anonymised version of your email may be sent to them to display your profile picture next to your comment. You can find their privacy policy here: https://automattic.com/privacy/.
2. When You Contact Us
- What we collect: Your name, email address, and the message you send via our contact form.
- Why we collect it: To reply to your query. We keep these submissions for a limited time for customer service but never use this information for marketing.
- Our lawful basis: Legitimate Interest (to provide good customer service).
3. When You Buy a Digital Product (e.g., an eBook)
- What we collect: Your name, email address, billing address, and payment details.
- Why we collect it: To process your payment, deliver your digital download, create your account (if you choose to make one), and send you important information about your order.
- Our lawful basis: Contractual Necessity (we need this information to fulfil our contract with you when you buy something).
4. Analytics & Website Performance
- What we collect: Anonymous data about how you use our site, such as which pages are popular and how long visitors stay. This includes information like your device type and browser.
- Why we collect it: To understand what content is most helpful to our community, so we can create more of it and improve how the website works.
- Our lawful basis: Legitimate Interest (to improve our website and content for users) or Consent (via our cookie banner).
5. Advertising
We work with Mediavine to show advertisements on our site, which helps fund the creation of our free recipes and resources.
For full details, please see the “Our Use of Cookies” section below and Mediavine’s policy here: Mediavine Partners.
- What they collect: Mediavine and their partners use cookies to collect data like your IP address and browsing activity to show you ads that are more relevant to your interests. This is known as interest-based advertising.
- Why do they collect it: To make advertising more relevant and to measure its effectiveness.
- Your choices: You are in control. You can learn more and opt out of this type of data collection by visiting the National Advertising Initiative opt-out page or the Digital Advertising Alliance website.
Contact Form and Comments
If you contact us through the contact form submissions, we will keep this information for customer service purposes, but we do not use any of the information submitted for marketing purposes.
We collect information about visitors who comment on WHK and use our Akismet anti-spam service. The information we collect typically includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter, such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself).
Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)
The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.
First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at All About Cookies.
Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.
The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:
- IP Address
- Operating System type
- Operating System version
- Device Type
- Language of the website
- Web browser type
- Email (in hashed form)
Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.
If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.
For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.
Our Use of Cookies (The Short & Sweet Version)
A cookie is a tiny text file stored on your computer. It helps our website remember your preferences and understand how you use it.
- Essential Cookies: These are necessary for the site to work (e.g., for you to log in or for your shopping basket to function).
- Functional Cookies: These enable extra features, like embedding a YouTube video.
- Statistics Cookies: These help us understand how our website is performing so we can improve it.
- Marketing Cookies: These are used by our advertising partners (Mediavine) to show you relevant ads.
When you first visit our site, a banner will pop up asking for your consent to use non-essential cookies. You can change or withdraw your consent at any time.
How can I control the cookie preferences?
Should you decide to change your preferences later through your browsing session, you can click on the “Privacy & Cookie Policy” tab on your screen. This will display the consent notice again, enabling you to change your preferences or withdraw your consent entirely.
In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can change the settings of your browser to block or delete cookies. To find out more about how to manage and delete cookies, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.
Digital Downloads
We collect information about you during the checkout process at our store. This information may include but is not limited to, your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, credit card/payment details and any other details that might be requested from you for the purpose of processing your orders.
Handling this data also allows us to:
– Send you important account/order/service information.
– Respond to your queries, refund requests, or complaints.
– Process payments and prevent fraudulent transactions. We do this on the basis of our legitimate business interests.
– Set up and administer your account, provide technical and/or customer support, and verify your identity.
Additionally, we may also collect the following information:
– Location and traffic data (including IP address and browser type) if you place an order, or if we need to estimate taxes and shipping costs based on your location.
– Product pages visited and content viewed while your session is active.
– Your comments and product reviews if you choose to leave them on our website.
– Account email/password to allow you to access your account, if you have one.
– If you choose to create an account with us, your name, address, and email address, which will be used to populate the checkout for future orders.
Who We Share Your Data With
We will never sell your personal data. However, to run WHK, we work with a few trusted partners who process data on our behalf:
- Spam Detection: Akismet (to protect our comments section).
- Advertising: Mediavine and its partners (to display ads).
- Payment Processing: like Stripe and PayPal (to securely handle payments for our products).
- Website Hosting & Analytics: WHK’s hosting provider and Google Analytics.
- Some of these partners are based outside the UK. Where we transfer data internationally, we ensure it is protected by appropriate legal safeguards.
How Long Do We Keep Your Information
- Comments: Your comment and its metadata are kept indefinitely so that we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically.
- Contact Form Submissions: We keep these for 1 year for customer service purposes.
- Purchase Records: We keep customer order information for 7 years to comply with legal and tax obligations.
Your Rights Over Your Data
You have a right to be in control of your personal information. Under UK data protection law, you have the right to:
- Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Rectification: Ask us to correct any information you believe is inaccurate.
- Erasure: Ask us to delete your personal data.
- Restrict Processing: Ask us to limit how we use your data.
- Object: Object to us processing your data (for example, for marketing purposes).
- Data Portability: Request that we transfer your data to another organisation.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact me at michelle(at)wholeheartykitchen.co.uk. Please note that we may need to keep certain data for legal or security reasons (for example, records of purchases for tax purposes).
Our Policy on Children’s Privacy
WHK is a resource for the whole family, but it is intended for use by adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with their information, please contact us immediately so we can remove it.
Updates to This Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be available on this page.
Thank you for being part of the Whole Hearty Kitchen community.
Michelle
Contact information
For privacy-specific concerns please email Michelle(at) wholeheartykitchen.co.uk