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At FoodCycle, we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Your personal data is protected by UK legislation, specifically, GDPR 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) 2003.
This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.
We may change this policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.
If you have any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices, you can contact us via our contact form or by writing to FoodCycle, 2.16, The Food Exchange, New Covent Garden Market, London, SW8 5EL. Alternatively, you can telephone 02077292775.
Who are we?
We’re FoodCycle, a national charity that connects communities by bringing people together to share food and conversation. FoodCycle is a registered charity (no. 1134423) and company limited by guarantee (no. 7101349). The registered address is FoodCycle, 2.16, The Food Exchange, New Covent Garden Market, London, SW8 5EL
How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example when you:
What type of information is collected from you?
Depending on your interaction with FoodCycle we may change the personal information that we collect. This would include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when.
If you are a FoodCycle employee, registering as a volunteer or have attended a FoodCycle meal as a guest and want to know how we use and store your data, you can download our Staff, Volunteer and Guest Data Policy (PDF).
If you are applying for a job with FoodCycle please read our Job Applicant Privacy Notice (PDF).
We will only collect sensitive personal data where absolutely necessary and with your explicit consent. All data collected by FoodCycle will be retained only for an appropriate length of time, defined by our legal requirements and operational needs, and will be securely archived or deleted after this time.
Your information may be shared with us by charitable giving sites or independent event organisers, for example JustGiving or London Marathon, or by carefully selected commercial partners and only if you have specifically consented to allow your data to be shared with FoodCycle in this way. Depending on your settings or the privacy policies for social media and messaging services, you might give us permission to access information from those accounts or services. For example, if choosing to register for an activity using a ‘Sign up with Facebook’ link, Facebook may share information such as your name and email address with us. By completing the form, you are giving them consent to do this.
We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our site.
If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
We may also collect details of your visits to our site, including but not limited to traffic data, location data, weblogs, and other communication data and the resources that you access.
By submitting this personal information, you enable us to provide you with the information, services, or products you select.
To help us create a more effective site that reflects users’ needs, we may also use cookie files to collect and record information about how our site is used and collect your IP address (a number that identifies a specific computer or other internet device) for system administration and to report aggregated information. Cookie files and IP addresses will not identify you as an individual. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our use of cookies.
How is your information used?
FoodCycle may use your information in a variety of ways such as:
We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations (for example the collection of Gift Aid). We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.
When we request your personal information on this site, if we tell you we will use it for a specific purpose then we will only use it for that purpose.
Who has access to your information?
Your data will be shared internally, only where it is necessary for FoodCycle staff to perform their duties. FoodCycle will strive to limit access to your data to those staff who have a legitimate reason for seeing it and will endeavour to keep your data secure at all times.
FoodCycle will not rent or sell your personal information to other organisations.
Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf
We may pass your information to our third-party service providers, agents’ subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to our franchise partners, to process donations and send you emails), or to support with monitoring and evaluation of our services. When we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties beyond FoodCycle unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.
Third party organisations we currently work with are Apple Pay, Benevity, BT MyDonate, Charities Aid Foundation, Charities Trust, Dot Digital, Eventbrite, Findock, Give WP, Just Giving, Meta, Paypal, Stripe, Text Local, WordPress. We may add to this list over time but we will always check that the organisation has their own data protection and privacy policies.
When making a donation, purchasing an event ticket or buying a product from us, we do not collect or store your card or bank details. We have a secure online system so that any payments are processed by a third-party payment processor (Stripe, Paypal or Apple Pay), who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of online transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us.
We may transfer your personal information to a third party if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our supporters and customers. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.
Your choices
You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications from us about the vital work, we do for people who are hungry and lonely and our exciting services, then you can select your choices by ticking the relevant boxes situated on the form on which we collect your information.
We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone, post or text message unless you have given prior consent.
You can unsubscribe from our emails at any time through the unsubscribe link at the end of all our emails. If you want to stop seeing any social media advertising from FoodCycle you can adjust your settings on the specific social media site (e.g. Facebook, Tik Tok, Instagram etc)
If you would like to change any of your other communications settings please use our contact form to outline your request.
How you can access and update your information
The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you are a volunteer, you can update your details through the volunteer poral: http://volunteer.foodcycle.org.uk
If you are not a volunteer but would like to update your details that we hold for you please contact us via our contact form or write to us at FoodCycle, 2.16, The Food Exchange, New Covent Garden Market, London, SW8 5EL
To request an information access report which details the information we hold about you, please use our contact form or send your request in writing to:
Data Protection, FoodCycle, 2.16, The Food Exchange, New Covent Garden Market, London, SW8 5EL
We will offer a full response to all information access requests within thirty working days of receipt.
We are also a member of the Fundraising regulator. The Fundraising Regulator, an independent body which regulates fundraising practices, also operates the Fundraising Preference Service (FPS) which you can use to indicate which non-profit organisations you would no longer like to hear from.
Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information.
FoodCycle takes the security of your data seriously. We maintain internal policies and controls that are designed to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by our employees in the proper performance of their duties. Such controls include:
Where FoodCycle engages third parties to process personal data on our behalf, they do so only on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of your data.
Profiling
We may analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you. We may make use of additional information about you when it is available from external sources to help us do this effectively. We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk.
Use of ‘cookies’
Like many other websites, the FoodCycle website uses cookies. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual.
Some cookies are crucial to the smooth running of our website – for example our donation pages rely on them. Other cookies allow us to understand (by using tools like Google Analytics) how visitors are interacting with our website, so that we can improve it.
We also use cookies to ensure that any investments we make in online advertising are as cost-effective as possible, by tracking how well individual adverts perform. These cookies are issued by third party service providers that we have assessed as secure. From time to time, we will display adverts on other websites to people who have visited our website before, and the technology behind these adverts is also based on cookies. These cookies, as with all others we use, do not contain information that can personally identify you.
This website also uses Google Analytics Advertising Features to enable us to better understand the interests of our audience and to tailor our communications be more relevant to you. You may see FoodCycle listed in locations such as in search results or on the Google Display Network.
It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. For more information on how to switch off cookies on your computer, visit our full cookie policy. Turning cookies of may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.
For more information about cookies, please see www.allaboutcookies.org.
Links to other websites
This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website. We recommend that you check the policy of any third-party sites you visit.
16 or Under
We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian’s permission before providing us with personal information.
All applicable laws are followed with respect to data collection from children. Where we have date of birth information, we will not share data collected from children with any third parties at any time under any circumstances.
Parents and guardians should be aware that anyone under the age of 18 cannot volunteer with FoodCycle and any children attending our projects must be accompanied by an adult.
Transferring your information outside of Europe
As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU”). By way of example, this may happen if any of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EU. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.
If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.
People who contact us via social media
We may obtain your personal data through your use of social media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, X (formally Twitter), Tik Tok, Threads or LinkedIn, depending on your settings or the privacy policies of these social media and messaging services. To change your settings on these services, please refer to their privacy notices, which you can find on their sites.
Lodging a complaint
FoodCycle runs in accordance with all relevant UK data protection laws. If you would like to find out more about these laws and how you could be affected beyond what is mentioned in this privacy policy, please visit the Information Commissioner’s Office.
You have a right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, which FoodCycle will supply to you within one month.
If you have any specific questions about how FoodCycle processes your data which are not answered here or you would like to make a complaint about how we have managed your data then please either write, call or email us via the details below.
Data Controller, FoodCycle, 2.16, The Food Exchange, New Covent Garden Market, London, SW8 5EL
Or you can contact us using our contact form.
If you are not satisfied with our response to your enquiry then you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office directly via the details on their website.
Review of this Policy
FoodCycle reserve the right to make alterations from time to time. Please check this website from time to time for the latest version.
Policy last reviewed and updated: January 2024
Everyone is welcome at FoodCycle. Whatever your reason for needing a meal, you are welcome to join us. Some people come for the food. Some people come for the company. No matter your background, you’ll be greeted warmly by our friendly volunteers.
Find your nearest FoodCycle location.
We kindly ask, that when joining us for a meal you follow our community meal guidelines (what we call our Project Agreement).
If you are over 18, yes! We have a number of different roles from welcoming our guests, cooking up a storm in the kitchen, helping collect surplus food or managing regional social media pages. All volunteers must be over 18 and no specific experience is required.
Visit our volunteer page for more information and to sign up.
We go where we’re needed to provide support for the people who benefit from our services, from older guests to refugees and asylum seekers, homeless people and those affected by mental ill health or tight budgets. We look for areas that could benefit from our community dining model, and where we might find a steady source of willing volunteers and local businesses happy to donate surplus food.
Most importantly, we start a conversation – working with local organisations to provide insight on the needs and problems facing each community’s residents. We monitor and evaluate carefully to ensure all our Projects are effective, nourish as many people as possible and strengthen the community from within.
If you would like to ask about setting up a FoodCycle in your area please complete our location enquiry form.
Food poverty is the inability to get enough healthy, affordable food. This can be due to lack of income, poor transport to local shops, knowledge about what constitutes a healthy diet, or the skills to create healthy meals.
Food poverty is a complex mix of factor factors, but they result in people on low incomes having the lowest intakes of fruit and vegetables and being far more likely to suffer from diet-related diseases such as cancer, diabetes, obesity and coronary heart disease.
FoodCycle isn’t a food bank. Food banks will provide items to be taken home to cook. FoodCycle runs Community Meals, which means we invite people to come and sit with us, around a table and enjoy a hot, nutritious meal. Our meals are served with warmth and dignity by friendly volunteers in a welcoming environment. Our weekly community dining service not only helps tackle food poverty but it also helps alleviate loneliness by bringing the community together.
Surplus food is food which is fit for human consumption, but has no commercial value for the retailer. This food, which may ultimately go to waste, may have become damaged in transit, might be past its ‘best before’ date or might have been over-ordered. It’s still perfectly good food, and we put it to good use.
In the UK, an estimated 12 million tonnes of food is wasted each year at all levels from plough to plate whilst 4 million people are affected by food poverty. At least 400,000 tonnes of this food is thrown away at retail level. At FoodCycle, we’re doing something about this by making use of edible food to create nutritious three-course meals for those who need it.
FoodCycle works with supermarkets, small independent grocery shops and markets to source perfectly edible surplus food in a safe and responsible way. We only reclaim fresh fruit and vegetables and we purchase extra ingredients such as dried foods and spices to make our meals as balanced and nutritious as possible.
We are only able to accept food donations from supermarkets, small independent grocery shops and markets. We can take fresh produce (e.g. fruit, vegetables and bread) and dried goods (e.g. pasta, lentils and spices). We are unable to accept meat, fish, food past its use by date, or ready-prepared foods, such as doughnuts, sandwiches or microwave meals.
We are unable to accept donations or small quantities from individuals – if you are looking to donate food, contact our friends at Plan Zheroes, Trussell Trust or Olio.
FoodCycle only serves meat-free food. The practical and legal hurdles to obtaining and serving meat and fish are substantial, and we couldn’t access it in the safe and easy way we can with fruit and vegetables. More importantly, by serving meat-free food, our meals are accessible to people of all cultures and religions.
Registered charity No. 1134423 | Company limited by guarantee no. 7101349
Registered charity No. 1134423
Company limited by guarantee no. 7101349