Privacy Policy

The Saucery is a family meal-planning app built by Molehill, based in Wellington, New Zealand. This policy explains what data we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have, including how to delete your account and all of your data.

We keep this simple: we collect only what we need to run the app for you and your family, we do not sell your data, and we do not use it for advertising.

Information we collect

Account information

When you create an account we collect your name and email address. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive a unique identifier from them and your email address instead of a password. If you sign up with email, we store a securely hashed password, never the plain text. You may optionally add a profile avatar.

Profile and preferences

To personalise the app we store your dietary preferences, measurement system (metric/imperial), locale, region, timezone, and your email notification preferences.

Content you create

The Saucery stores the content you and your family add to the app, including:

• Recipes, ingredients, and steps, whether typed, imported from a URL, or scanned from a photo
• Recipe photos you upload or capture
• Meal plans, shopping lists, and staple items
• Cooking history and recipe comments
• Grocery prices and purchases you record

Content created within a family is shared with the other members of that family so everyone sees the same recipes, meal plan, and shopping list in real time.

AI assistant (“Whisp”)

When you use the in-app assistant or AI features (such as importing a recipe, scanning a cookbook page, or asking a question), the relevant content (for example your message, recipe text, or photo) is sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, to generate a response. Recipe pictures are drawn by OpenAI: to make one, we send it the recipe's title and ingredients, and if you ask for your own photo to be restyled, that photo. We log basic usage of these features (such as token counts and timestamps) to operate and improve the service. Neither Anthropic nor OpenAI uses your data to train its models.

Voice in Cook Mode

Hands-free Cook Mode listens for voice commands using your device's built-in, on-device speech recognition. The audio is transcribed on your phone and is not sent to us or to anyone else, and we don't record or store it. You'll be asked for microphone and speech-recognition permission the first time, and you can turn it off at any time in your device settings.

Where you are, on the phone only

When you pick the supermarket you shop at, you can let the app put the nearest stores at the top. Your location is used on the phone to work out those distances and is never sent to us or to anyone else, the same way Cook Mode's voice commands are. The app asks for the permission at that moment, you can decline and pick your store from the list instead, and you can turn it off at any time in your device settings.

Subscription and payment information

Saucery Pass subscriptions bought inside the apps are processed by Apple or Google, and subscriptions bought on our website are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card details. What we do store is the subscription's status (which store it came from, the product, whether it's active, and when it renews or expires) so we know your family has access. The terms that apply to a subscription are in our Terms of Use.

Device and technical information

If you enable notifications, we store a push notification token for your device so we can deliver alerts. On Android these are delivered through Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging, and on iOS through Apple's Push Notification service. We also collect standard technical information needed to run a service, such as your IP address and basic request logs, for security and reliability.

Crash reports and app performance

The iOS and Android apps report crashes to Sentry, so that we find out about one without waiting for someone to tell us. A report carries the error itself, where in the app it happened, the device model and operating system version, and which screens were opened in the session leading up to it. A small sample of ordinary sessions is reported the same way, to show us which screens are slow.

A report is tagged with your account's internal id, so we can tell one person crashing repeatedly from many people crashing once, and with nothing else about you. Your name, your email address and your IP address are stripped before a report leaves the phone, and any sign-in token in a web address or a header is redacted. Released builds never attach a screenshot of what was on screen.

Website analytics

We measure how our website is used with Umami, an open-source analytics tool we run ourselves on our own server. No visitor data is sent to Google Analytics or any other third-party analytics service, and none of it leaves the infrastructure we control.

For pages on our website we record the page visited, the referring site, and a coarse picture of your device: browser, operating system, device type, screen size, language, and country. Your IP address is used to work out the country and is not stored alongside the visit. The pricing page also works out your country from your IP address, on our own server, to show prices in your currency. That lookup is not stored or sent anywhere. There are no advertising cookies and no cross-site tracking: visits are not linked together across other websites, and we cannot use this data to identify you.

On our public pages we also record how the page was used: mouse movement, scrolling, clicks and taps, so we can watch back an anonymous replay and see where the site is confusing. Anything you type is masked before it leaves your browser, and the signed-in part of the website is never recorded.

On the signed-in part of the website we deliberately do not run the analytics script in your browser. Instead the server records the type of page you opened (for example “a recipe page” rather than which recipe) along with a small number of events such as signing in or starting a subscription. Recipe titles, meal plans, names and email addresses are never included.

The The Saucery iOS and Android apps carry no Umami, no advertising identifier, and no analytics used for advertising or marketing. What they do send is the crash and performance reporting described above, and nothing else.

How we use your information

• To provide the app's core features: recipes, meal planning, shopping lists, cook mode, and family sharing
• To power AI features through our AI provider
• To manage Saucery Pass subscriptions and the free trial
• To sync shared content across your family in real time
• To send transactional messages (such as sign-in links) and, where you've opted in, occasional product and specials emails, which you can unsubscribe from at any time
• To keep the service secure, prevent abuse, and fix problems
• To learn about crashes and slow screens in the apps, so we can fix them
• To understand how our website is used, using our own self-hosted analytics

Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal data and we do not share it for advertising. We share data only with service providers that help us operate The Saucery, and only as needed:

• Anthropic, which processes content you submit to AI features to generate responses
• OpenAI, which draws recipe pictures from a recipe's title and ingredients, or from a photo you ask it to restyle
• Hosting and infrastructure providers, which store the app's data on our behalf
• Email and push notification providers, which deliver messages and alerts
• Sentry, which receives the crash and performance reports the apps send
• Apple, Google and Stripe, which process subscription payments and tell us whether a subscription is active
• Your family members: content you add to a shared family is visible to other members of that family

Website analytics are the exception to this list: they are handled entirely by software we run on our own server, so no third party is involved at all.

We may also disclose information if required by law.

Data retention

We keep your data for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account, we delete your personal data as described below.

Deleting your account and data

You can delete your account at any time, directly in the app:

• Open The Saucery and go to Settings → Account
• Tap Delete Account and confirm

Deleting your account permanently removes your profile, your sign-in sessions, your access tokens and your conversations with Whisp. This action is immediate and cannot be undone.

What happens to your family's recipes depends on who else is in it:

• If you are the only member, the family goes with you: its recipes and their photos, meal plans, shopping lists and staples are deleted from our systems.
• If other people share the family, it stays, and so does everything in it. Recipes you added remain available to them, listed under another member instead of you.

If your family pays for Saucery Pass on the web and you are the only member, we cancel that subscription immediately as part of the deletion, and the card is not charged again. Your invoices stay with our payment provider, Stripe, because we are required to keep records of payments.

Deleting your account does not cancel a Saucery Pass subscription bought through the App Store or Google Play. Only Apple and Google can stop those. Cancel yours in your Apple Account settings or your Google Play subscription settings.

If you can't access the app, you can request deletion by emailing hello@thesaucery.nz from the address associated with your account, and we will delete your account and personal data.

Children

The Saucery is intended for adults managing a household and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

Security

We protect your data using industry-standard measures, including encryption in transit, hashed passwords, and access controls. No system is perfectly secure, but we work hard to keep your information safe.

Your rights

You can access, correct, or delete your data at any time through the app, or by contacting us. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights over your personal information under applicable privacy law.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we'll update the date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you in the app.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy or your data, email us at hello@thesaucery.nz or use our contact page. Our Terms of Use cover the rest of your relationship with The Saucery.