Privacy

The short version

• You can read Freshie Ferment without an account. We do not ask for your name.
• Most pages use Google Analytics, which sets cookies and tells Google how the site is used.
• Questions you ask Freshie are sent to an AI provider (currently Anthropic) to get an answer. We keep a record of the questions people ask, without your IP address and without linking it to an account.
• A Freshie account is optional. If you create one, we store your email address and what you save.
• We do not sell your personal data and we do not run ads. Some product links are Amazon affiliate links.

Analytics

Most pages on freshieferment.com load Google Analytics 4 (measurement ID G-4F9FK0224M). It sets cookies in your browser and sends Google details of your visit, such as the pages you view, the site that sent you, your browser and device type, and your approximate location, which Google works out from your connection. There is no cookie banner.

Under our settings, Google keeps this event data for two months.

You can opt out with Google's Analytics opt-out add-on or a tracker blocker. Google's use of this data is covered by Google's privacy policy.

Ask Freshie

When you ask Ask Freshie a question, we send your question, the earlier messages in that conversation and any photos you attach to our AI provider (currently Anthropic, the maker of Claude) so it can write the answer. If you are signed in to a Freshie account, a short summary of the taste preferences you have saved is included so the answer can be personalised.

We keep a record of each question so we can see what readers ask and improve our guides and product suggestions. The record holds the question text, the date and time, which Freshie site and page it came from, the country your request came from (as reported by Cloudflare), how many photos were attached, short topic labels, and technical details such as the length of the answer and which AI model wrote it.

The record does not include your IP address, your photos, your account or email address, or the rest of the conversation. We do not store the photos you attach. If a photo shows a readable product, what was read from it is saved as a scan record, the same as when you use the scanner.

Because the question is stored as you wrote it, please do not type personal details such as names, addresses or phone numbers into a question.

Freshie accounts

A Freshie account is free and optional. You can read, scan and ask without one. If you create one at id.freshie.food, you sign in with a passkey (your device's fingerprint, face or PIN, which never leaves your device) or with a one-time link we email you that expires after 15 minutes. There are no passwords and no social sign-in.

We store your email address, your passkey's public key, the items you save to your shelf (such as a scan result, the store you noted, or a question you asked Freshie and its answer), the varieties you mark as favorites, a flavor profile worked out from what you save, your Taste Passport result and answers if you take the quiz while signed in, and your reminder setting. For each sign-in we keep a scrambled (hashed) copy of the session token and of your browser's user-agent string. Sessions last 90 days. We do not store your IP address with your account.

Account emails are sent with Resend: sign-in links when you ask for one and, only if you turn them on in your Flavor Profile, a weekly reminder when something on your shelf is at its best or near its date. Every reminder has an unsubscribe link. We send no marketing email.

Signing out on any Freshie site also signs you out of id.freshie.food on that browser.

You can delete your account at any time: open the account menu and choose Delete account. That permanently removes your email address, passkeys, sessions, shelf, favorites, flavor profile and settings on every Freshie site. Your device may still list the Freshie passkey, which you can remove in its password settings. To get a copy of your account data, email hello@veryation.com from the address on the account.

Affiliate links

Product links to Amazon go through our link service, go.veryation.com. For each click it records the search words, the site and page you came from, the referring address your browser sends (normally just the site name), the time, your country, your browser's user-agent string, and a one-way hash of your IP address (not the address itself). It sets no cookies.

Once you are on Amazon, Amazon's own privacy notice and cookies apply. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Cookies and browser storage

freshieferment.com sets no cookies of its own. Google Analytics sets its cookies as described above. If you sign in, id.freshie.food sets two sign-in cookies for freshie.food and its subdomains.

The site also uses your browser's local storage for things like your sign-in token and small settings such as a dismissed prompt. That stays in your browser until you sign out or clear it.

Services we use

• Cloudflare: hosts the site, our servers and databases, and handles your IP address and request details to deliver pages and block abuse.
• Google: Google Analytics.
• Anthropic: the AI provider that reads and answers Ask Freshie questions.
• Resend: sends account emails.
• Amazon: the destination of our affiliate links.

How long we keep data

• Scan records, question records and affiliate click records have no set deletion date.
• Account data is kept until the account is deleted. Sessions expire after 90 days and sign-in links after 15 minutes.
• Google Analytics event data is kept for two months.

Your choices and rights

You can use freshieferment.com without an account, block Google Analytics, turn reminder emails on or off on your Flavor Profile page, and delete your account from the account menu.

To ask what we hold about you, for a copy, or for deletion of a question you sent or anything else, email hello@veryation.com. Scan, question and click records are not tied to your name or account, so we can only find one if you tell us roughly when it happened and what it was.

Children

Freshie Ferment is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. If you think a child has sent us personal information, email hello@veryation.com and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, we update the date at the top of this page.

Contact

Privacy questions: hello@veryation.com. Freshie Ferment is run by Veryation.