Privacy Policy

Last Updated: July 16, 2026

1. Introduction

The Gourmet Animal ("we," "our," "us," or "the Company") understands that privacy is important to our customers. This Privacy Policy describes our practices regarding the collection, use, sharing, and protection of your personal information when you visit our website at thegourmetanimal.com (the "Site"), place an order for meal delivery or catering, subscribe to our email or SMS communications, or otherwise interact with us (collectively, the "Services").

This Privacy Policy also tells you about the rights and choices you have with respect to your personal information, how you can assert those rights, and how you can contact us to get answers to your questions.

Please note that our privacy practices are subject to the applicable laws of the regions in which we operate. Accordingly, some additional region-specific terms will only apply to individuals in those locations, or as required by applicable laws.

By using or accessing our Services, you acknowledge that you have read and understand this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with our policies or practices, you should not use or access our Services or provide us with any personal information.

2. What This Privacy Policy Covers

This Privacy Policy applies to the personal information that we obtain in various contexts, both online and offline, including when you:

• access or use our Site or place an order through our online store;

• receive meal delivery or catering services from us;

• communicate with us over email, SMS/text message, phone, or through our customer-support tools;

• subscribe to our newsletter, rewards, or promotional programs;

• engage with us on social media; or

• participate in any of our sweepstakes, contests, or surveys.

We may provide different or additional privacy notices in connection with certain activities, and we may provide additional "just-in-time" notices or notices at collection that may supplement or clarify our privacy practices or provide you with additional choices regarding your personal information.

3. Information We Collect

We use the term "personal information" to refer to information that reasonably identifies, relates to, describes, or can be associated with you. Data that has been de-identified or that otherwise cannot reasonably be related back to a specific person is not considered personal information.

3.1 Personal Information You Provide

We collect personal information that you provide to us directly. This may include, but is not limited to:

• Identifiers, such as your name, email address, phone number, mailing/delivery address, and date of birth;

• Order and transaction details, including products ordered, delivery instructions, scheduling preferences, and the last four (4) digits of your credit card or other payment method (we do not collect or store full payment card details — see "Payment Processors" below);

• Account information, such as your login credentials and profile details when you create an account;

• Communications, including the content of messages you send us via email, SMS, phone, or our support tools;

• Dietary and preference information (such as allergies, restrictions, or preferences) you voluntarily provide to customize your meals or orders. We use this information solely to fulfill your orders and provide customer service; we do not use it for advertising or to infer characteristics about you;

• Survey and contest responses; and

• Any other information you voluntarily provide to us.

3.2 Personal Information We Collect Automatically

When you visit our Site, open or click on emails we send you, or interact with our advertisements, we or third parties we work with may automatically collect certain information using technologies such as cookies and other tracking technologies described below.

• Device and online identifiers, including internet protocol (IP) address, mobile ad identifiers, and data collected from cookies, beacons, and pixel tags;

• Internet or electronic network activity information, including browsing history, search history, pages visited, time and date of your visit, referring website, click-stream data, and information regarding your interaction with our Site, emails, or advertisements;

• Browser and device information, such as browser type, operating system, and screen resolution; and

• Approximate location information derived from your IP address.

3.3 Cookies and Similar Technologies

"Cookies" are pieces of information that may be placed on your computer or device by a website for the purpose of collecting data to facilitate and enhance your communication and interaction with that website. We may use cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, clear GIFs, and similar technologies to:

• remember your preferences and items in your cart;

• recognize you when you return to our Site;

• analyze how visitors use our Site;

• measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns; and

• deliver interest-based advertising.

You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Site. See "Your Choices" below for more information on managing cookies.

3.4 Analytics

We work with third-party vendors who use the technologies described in this section to conduct website analytics. One such provider is Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google. Google Analytics uses cookies to help analyze how users use our Site. The information generated (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google and may be transferred to third parties where required by law or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. You may refuse the use of Google Analytics cookies by visiting Google's opt-out tool.

3.5 Social Media Platforms

If you interact with us on social media or use features such as plugins, widgets, or tools made available by social media platforms (such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube) in connection with our Services, we may collect information that you share with us on social media or that such platforms share with us. Please review the privacy policies and settings of the social media platforms you use for more information about their privacy practices.

3.6 Information We Collect From Other Sources

We may obtain information about you from other sources, such as data analytics providers, marketing or advertising vendors, fraud-prevention vendors, and publicly available sources, and we may combine that information with the information we collect directly from you.

4. How We Use Your Information

We may use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• Account Creation and Management: to set up and administer your account, provide customer support, and send important account and service information;

• Order Fulfillment and Service: to process, prepare, and deliver your meal and catering orders, schedule deliveries, and provide customer service;

• Marketing Communications: to send marketing communications, promotional offers, discount information, new-product announcements, and our newsletter via email, SMS, direct mail, or social media, and to measure the success of those campaigns (e.g., email open and click rates);

• Rewards and Loyalty Programs: to administer your participation in any rewards or referral programs;

• Sweepstakes, Contests, and Promotions: to process entries and administer promotional programs;

• Surveys and Polls: for market research when you choose to participate;

• Improvement of Our Services: to understand and analyze how you use our Site, develop new products, services, features, and functionality, and personalize and expand our offerings;

• Security, Fraud Prevention, and Legal Compliance: to find and prevent fraud, detect security incidents, protect against malicious or illegal activity, and meet our legal, audit, and compliance obligations; and

• Any additional purposes that you specifically consent to.

If you choose not to provide certain personal information necessary to process an order or provide a service, we may not be able to perform that service or complete the transaction.

5. How We Disclose or Share Your Information

We may disclose your personal information to other entities in the following instances:

5.1 Service Providers

We share your personal information with third-party service providers who perform services on our behalf. These include providers of:

• E-commerce platform and website hosting: Shopify (our online store, search, and checkout; Shopify's privacy policy is available at shopify.com/legal/privacy/customers);

• Email marketing: Klaviyo (SMS marketing may also be used where available);

• Customer support: Intercom (including Fin), which may process the content of your support conversations, including automated support interactions;

• Advertising and analytics: Meta/Facebook, Google, and, where used, Microsoft/Bing Ads;

• Payment processing, order fulfillment, delivery, and cloud hosting.

These service providers may have access to personal information necessary to perform their functions, but are only permitted to use it in connection with performing services for us and not for their own benefit.

5.2 Payment Processors

If you make a purchase through our Services, your payment details are handled by our payment processors (which may include Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, and other options such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, or Stripe depending on the checkout methods available at the time of purchase), and are subject to those processors' privacy policies. We do not receive or store your full credit or debit card number.

5.3 Business and Advertising Partners

We may share your personal information with third parties who partner with us to promote products and services, deliver marketing and advertisements, conduct data analytics, or use the data for other commercial purposes (including cross-context behavioral advertising). We do not control how these third parties use and share your personal information once they receive it; you will need to contact such third parties directly to exercise any rights you may have.

5.4 Legal Obligations

We may disclose or share your personal information where we believe it is necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law; (b) to respond to legal process, or requests from courts, law enforcement, regulatory, or government authorities; (c) to enforce our terms and conditions; and (d) to protect the rights, privacy, safety, or property of ourselves or others, including to investigate or remedy potential violations of our policies, prevent fraud, and protect against malicious or illegal activity.

5.5 Business Transfers

We may share your personal information in connection with a merger, acquisition, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of a bankruptcy or similar proceeding.

5.6 Non-Personal Information

We may share non-personal, anonymized, aggregated, or statistical data with unaffiliated third parties, such as business and advertising partners, to improve and enhance your experience and for our own market research. We do not attempt to re-identify such information.

6. Links to Other Sites and Social Media Services

Our Site may contain links to third-party websites and applications. We do not endorse and are not responsible for the content, privacy policies, or practices of these third-party sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

Any personal information you voluntarily include in a publicly accessible blog, forum, social network, or similar feature may be viewed and used by others. By using such features, you assume the risk that the information you provide may be viewed and used by third parties.

7. Interest-Based Advertising

We, or third-party vendors working on our behalf, may use your information to deliver targeted advertising to you when you visit our Site or other websites. Cookies, click-stream data, and similar technologies may be used in this process. This form of advertising (sometimes called "targeted advertising," "behavioral advertising," or "cross-context behavioral advertising") enables us and our vendors to deliver ads relevant to your interests.

We may also use your information to help determine whether you have interacted with our Services across multiple devices and to match such devices, so that we may display relevant advertisements across the devices we believe are associated with each other.

To opt out of interest-based advertising, please see "Your Choices" below.

8. Data Security

We have implemented reasonable and appropriate physical, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect the security, confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the personal information we process. However, no method of safeguarding information is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee that our safeguards will be effective or sufficient against all threats. If you have reason to believe your interaction with us is no longer secure, please contact us immediately using the information in "Contact Us."

9. Data Retention

We will retain your personal information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you with our Services, and for a reasonable time thereafter in accordance with our standard procedures or as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Even if we delete some or all of your information, we may continue to retain and use anonymous, aggregate, or de-identified data.

10. Your Choices

Consistent with applicable law, you may exercise the choices described in this section regarding your personal information and communications from us.

10.1 Opting Out of Communications

If you receive a marketing message from us, you may unsubscribe using the unsubscribe link included in an email, by replying "STOP" to an SMS message, or by contacting us at the email or phone below. We will process your request within a reasonable time. Note that opting out of certain communications may affect your ability to receive order confirmations, delivery updates, or other service-related messages.

10.2 Cookies and Tracking Technologies

To stop or restrict the placement of cookies, or to delete cookies already on your device, adjust your web browser preferences. Further information is available at www.allaboutcookies.org. Deleting or disabling cookies may affect access to certain areas or features of our Site. Cookie-based opt-outs must be performed on each device and browser.

Some browsers offer a "Do Not Track" (DNT) feature. We do not currently respond to or honor DNT signals transmitted by web browsers. However, if you are a resident of California, Colorado, Connecticut, or another state with a privacy law that applies to such signals, we treat opt-out preference signals (such as Global Privacy Control) as a valid request to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information, or of processing for targeted advertising, as applicable.

10.3 Interest-Based Advertising Opt-Outs

You may opt out of receiving targeted ads from certain advertising partners through industry self-regulatory programs:

• Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA): www.aboutads.info/consumers;

• Network Advertising Initiative (NAI): www.networkadvertising.org/choices;

• For ads delivered through Meta/Facebook, manage your preferences in your Facebook ad settings;

• For mobile ads, you may limit ad tracking or reset your advertising identifier via your device settings (e.g., "Limit Ad Tracking" on Apple devices or "Opt out of Interest-based ads" on Android devices). To learn how on iOS, visit Apple's support page.

Note that opting out will not stop all advertising — you may continue to see generic, non-tailored ads.

11. Cross-Border Data Transfers

If you submit personal information to us, that information may be processed in a jurisdiction where privacy laws may be less stringent than those in your country of residence. By submitting your personal information to us, you agree to the transfer, storage, and processing of such information in the United States and other jurisdictions where our service providers operate.

12. Children's Privacy

Our Services are intended for general audiences, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of consumers we actually know are under 16 years of age without affirmative authorization. If you are a parent or guardian and believe we may have collected personal information from a child under 13, please contact us, and we will use reasonable efforts to delete such information.

13. California Privacy Rights

The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 ("CCPA"), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 ("CPRA"), provides California consumers with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes those rights and how to exercise them. For purposes of this section, "personal information" does not include information lawfully made available from government records, de-identified or aggregate data, or information excluded from the scope of the CCPA. These rights apply only to the extent you are a California consumer and we are acting as a "business" under the CCPA.

13.1 Information We Collect, Use, and Disclose

Below is a summary of the categories of personal information we may collect, our business or commercial purposes, the categories of third parties to whom we disclose it, and whether we "sell" or "share" it. Some types of personal information may apply to multiple categories.

We retain each category of personal information as described in the "Data Retention" section above. We may disclose personal information to a third party for a business purpose, or "sell" or "share" it, subject to your right to opt out.

13.2 Notice of Financial Incentive

We may offer discounts, coupons, referral rewards, loyalty benefits, or other incentives in connection with certain programs (such as newsletter sign-ups, reviews, or referrals) in which you voluntarily share personal information. Your participation is completely optional. We believe the value of any benefit you receive exceeds the value of the personal information you share. You may withdraw from or opt out of any such program at any time by contacting us at chris@thegourmetanimal.com.

Sale or Sharing: In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have not "sold" personal information for monetary consideration. We do "share" personal information (as that term is defined under California law) for cross-context behavioral advertising and other marketing purposes with our advertising and analytics partners. To our knowledge, we do not sell or share the personal information of minors under 16.

13.3 Your California Privacy Rights

• Right to Know / Access. You have the right to request that we disclose: the categories of personal information we collected about you; the categories of sources; our business or commercial purpose for collecting, selling, or sharing it; the categories of third parties to whom we disclose it; and the specific pieces of personal information we collected about you.

• Right to Delete. You have the right to request that we delete any personal information we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions (e.g., to detect security incidents, protect against fraud, or comply with legal obligations).

• Right to Correct. You have the right to request correction of inaccurate personal information we maintain about you.

• Right to Data Portability. You have the right to request a copy of the personal information you provided to us, in a readily usable electronic format, up to twice in a 12-month period.

• Right to Opt-Out of Sale or Sharing. You have the right to opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of your personal information. To exercise this right, email us at chris@thegourmetanimal.com or visit our "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" link (where available). We also treat Global Privacy Control (GPC) browser signals as a valid opt-out request.

• Right to Limit Use of Sensitive Personal Information. To the extent any information we collect (such as voluntarily provided dietary restrictions) could be considered "sensitive personal information," we use it only to provide our Services and customer support, and do not use or share it to infer characteristics about you.

• Right to Non-Discrimination. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights — for example, by denying goods or services, charging different prices, or providing a different level or quality of service.

13.4 Exercising Your California Rights

To exercise any of the rights above, contact us at chris@thegourmetanimal.com or by mail at the address in "Contact Us." After we receive your request, we will take steps to verify your identity (at a minimum, by asking for your name, email address, and relationship to us) before responding. We will make every effort to respond within 45 days (up to 90 days for complex requests, with notice). You may designate an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf by providing written authorization.

13.5 California "Shine the Light"

Under California Civil Code Section 1798.83, California residents who have an established business relationship with us may request a list of the categories of personal information we have disclosed to third parties for their direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year. To make such a request, or to opt out of such disclosures, email us at chris@thegourmetanimal.com.

14. Other U.S. State Privacy Rights

State privacy laws — including the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, the Colorado Privacy Act, the Connecticut Data Privacy Act, the Utah Consumer Privacy Act, and similar laws in other states — provide residents of those states with certain rights regarding their personal data, including:

• the right to know whether we process your personal data and to access it;

• the right to correct inaccuracies;

• the right to delete personal data you provided or that we obtained about you;

• the right to obtain a copy of your personal data in a portable, readily usable format (up to twice annually, subject to exceptions);

• the right to opt out of the processing of your personal data for targeted advertising, the sale of personal data, or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects; and

• the right not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your privacy rights.

As of the date of this Privacy Policy: we process personal data for targeted advertising; we "share" (but do not "sell" for monetary consideration) personal data for advertising purposes; and we do not engage in profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects. For residents of Colorado and Connecticut, we will treat opt-out preference signals (such as Global Privacy Control) as valid opt-out requests. To opt out, email us at chris@thegourmetanimal.com.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the information in "Contact Us." We will verify your identity before responding, make every effort to respond within 45 days (up to 90 days for complex requests), and provide a method to appeal any denial.

Nevada Residents

If you are a resident of Nevada, you have the right to opt out of the sale of certain personal information to data brokers or other third parties under Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 603A. To exercise this right, email us at chris@thegourmetanimal.com with the subject line "Nevada Do Not Sell Request."

15. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time at our discretion. Any modifications will be applied prospectively. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the updated Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last Updated" date at the top. Your continued use of our Services following the posting of changes means you accept the updated policy. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

16. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy and security practices, or to exercise any of your rights, please contact us at:

The Gourmet Animal
1325 E El Segundo Blvd, Unit D
Phone: 310-310-5405
Email: chris@thegourmetanimal.com