Privacy policy
This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) lets you know the types of information we collect about you offline or online, including when you visit Chef Merito’s website at https://www.chefmerito.com (our “Website”), and our practices for using, disclosing, and sharing that information.
This Policy was last updated on January 13th, 2025.
Introduction. This Policy applies to information we collect on our Websites, in emails or other communications between you and Chef Merito, information you may provide to us, or information we collect when you use our services or otherwise interact with us.
Please read this Policy carefully to understand our practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. We reserve the right to update or modify this Policy from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy below). We encourage you to review this page periodically for the latest information on our privacy practices. Where applicable data protection laws require us, we will provide appropriate notice, and take any necessary action, should we make any material changes to our practices.
Children Under the Age of 16. Our Website is not intended for children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect, sell, or share personal information from children under 16. If you are under the age of 16, do not use or provide any information on our Website, including providing any information about yourself to us. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under the age of 16 without parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we have any information from a child under the age of 16, please contact us (see Help below).
Information We Collect About You And How We Collect It.
We collect information about you in many ways including, for example, when you visit our Website, contact us, subscribe to receive information from us, visit us, attend one of our events, or create an account with us. This information may include personal information that can be used to identify you. Personal information, as used in this Policy, includes sensitive personal information as defined in applicable state regulations (and identified in the table below). Personal information does not include publicly available information from government records, or either deidentified or aggregated consumer information.
In particular, the table below describes our practices within the last twelve months. The first column describes the categories of personal information we may collect about you. The second column describes the processing purposes that are applicable to each category of personal information. The third column describes the categories of recipients that receive the personal information. In the fourth column, we provide for each category of information, the applicable retention period.
We collect personal information directly from you and from our service providers. We may also collect information from public sources and records and from third parties (such as, for example, content providers, social media platforms, and for our business-to-business marketing efforts, we receive business contact information from list services). Generally, we retain personal information until it is no longer needed for the processing purposes or after a minimum of 7 years unless otherwise required by law or contract.
With respect to sensitive personal information, we use services which may collect information about the precise geolocation (e.g., latitude/longitude data) of your device consistent with your device settings or opt-in choices. Location-based technology is used near locations that sell our product to collect information about the presence of your device if your device settings allow for this. This information is collected or derived from your GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth or other location-based technology for purposes of facilitating our services, such as, for example, to provide you with information about stores near you that sell our product, including delivering advertisements to you consistent with your location and other demographic information about you. You can control access to the location data through your device settings.
We do not use or disclose any other sensitive personal information we collect for any purpose other than to provide the goods or services; to prevent, detect, and investigate security incidents; to resist malicious, deceptive, fraudulent or illegal actions directed at Chef Merito, including to prosecute those responsible for such actions; to ensure the physical safety of persons; short-term transient use (e.g., non-personalized advertising shown as part of a consumer’s current interaction with the business, where that personal information is not disclosed to a third party and is not used to build a profile about the consumer or otherwise alter the consumer’s experience outside the current interaction of the business); to perform services on behalf of the business (e.g., maintaining or servicing accounts, providing customer service, processing or fulfilling orders and transactions, verifying customer information, processing payments, providing financing, providing analytic services, providing storage); to verify or maintain the quality or safety of a service or device that is owned, manufactured, or controlled by Chef Merito or to improve, upgrade or enhance such service or device; or for purposes that do not infer characteristics about a consumer.
Automatic Data Collection. We collect certain information by automated means when you visit our Website, view our advertisements, or use our services, which helps us measure traffic patterns on our Website and to understand how users navigate our Website. We collect this information through various means, including, for example, cookies and IP addresses. We may also use analytics to create reports to tell us, for example, how many users visited our Website, what pages have been accessed, and from what geographic regions users visited our Website.
How you can control cookies. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. However, if you prefer not to store cookies on your device, you can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, set your browser to refuse cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser, delete cookies after visiting our site, or browse our site using your browser’s anonymous usage setting. Additionally, you can manage our cookie usage by accessing our Cookie Banner.
Social Media. At the bottom or our Website, we provide links to the correspondent social media (e.g., Facebook.Chef Merito, X.Chef Merito, YouTube.Chef Merito, Pinterest.Chef Merito, and Instagram.Chef Merito). No personal information is transmitted to these social media via our Website unless you click on the links to the correspondent social media.
When you interact with our social media pages, we receive basic engagement metrics and use this information to improve our pages and enhance our content and marketing efforts. If you interact with these pages by, for example, posting comments or liking or sharing posts, any personal information that you post in these interactions or provide when registering for such social media, can be viewed and used by others. We may use such public information you provide on our social media to send you targeted marketing offers. We do not control the use or storage of the information that is collected and processed by social media websites, including how your information is used if you are logged into your social media account when you access our social media page(s). For more information on how Facebook, X, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram use your personal information, please see Facebook's Privacy Policy, X's Privacy Policy, YouTube's Privacy Policy, Pinterest's Privacy Policy, and Instagram's Privacy Policy.
Additionally, when you visit our social media pages, we may receive Internet or other similar activity through social media analytics. For example, we use Instagram analytics in connection with the operation of our Instagram page in order to obtain anonymized statistical data about visitors to our Instagram page. For this purpose, Instagram places a cookie on your device when you visit our Instagram page at Instagram.Chef Merito. Each cookie contains a unique identifier code and Instagram receives, records, and processes the information stored in the cookie, including demographic information from any Instagram profile you may have, to provide us with anonymized metrics to help us measure the effectiveness of our Instagram page for marketing purposes. For more information on the privacy practices of Instagram see the link provided above.
Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics to collect information on your use of the Website for its improvement. To collect this information, Google Analytics installs cookies on your browser or reads cookies that are already there. Google Analytics also receives information about you from applications you have downloaded that partner with Google. We do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with personal information. Google’s practices with respect to your personal information collected by Google Analytics is in accordance with Google Analytics’ Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You can prevent your personal information from being used by Google Analytics by downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on found Google Analytics Opt-Out. To opt-out of the sale or sharing through cookies, visit Cookies Opt-Out
General Ways We Use Your Information
Chef Merito may also use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us for one of the following purposes:
· To improve customer service. Your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs.
· To improve our Website and advertise our services. Through our use of automatic data collection mechanisms, we are able to understand how our Website is being used, to measure the effectiveness of our Website, to customize content and advertising, and to use and analyze target markets.
· To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it, including when you fill out a form requesting information from us.
· To personalize your Website experience and to deliver content and product and service information and offerings relevant to your interests or location, including providing such information or offer via email.
· To register you to attend an event or online seminar, which may include helping us to plan, coordinate, and host such events, and analyzing your interests in and interactions with the event.
· If you visit our offices, we may register you as a visitor.
· Chef Merito may receive information about you from other sources, including from third parties. We may also receive/use general demographic information about you to market products or services that may be of interest to you based on your demographics. We may combine this information with other information provided by you which helps us to update and expand our records, identify new customers, and tailor our advertising and marketing communications.
· To notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide through it.
· To help maintain the safety, security, and integrity of our Website, products and services, and databases.
· To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
· To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide consent.
· To evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets (“transaction”), whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us about our Website users or customers is among the assets being transferred, which may occur prior to consummation of such transaction.
If you are submitting information on behalf of another party, we expect that you have received appropriate consent, according to applicable privacy laws, before transferring any personal information to Chef Merito.
How We Disclose Your Information
We may disclose aggregated information about consumers, and information that does not identify an individual, without restriction. In addition to the Categories of Recipients identified in the table above, we may disclose your personal information to the following categories of recipients in a manner that does not constitute a sale or sharing of information:
- To you or other parties at your direction or through your intentional action.
- To our service providers.
- To recipients for the purpose of managing your rights.
- For Corporate Transactions. Chef Merito may also disclose your information to a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Chef Merito’s assets, where personal information held by Chef Merito about you is among the assets transferred.
- Other Reasons. We may share your information to: (a) satisfy applicable law, regulations, legal process or valid governmental request; (b) enforce the terms of use applicable to our services, defend against legal claims or demands, or to exercise our legal rights, (c) detect, prevent or mitigate fraud or security or technical issues; or (d) protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of our company, our customers or the public as required or permitted by law.
Links to Other Sites
Occasionally, we may provide links to other websites for your convenience and information. These websites operate independently from us and are not under our control. We suggest that you review the privacy notices and terms of use for these websites if you visit any linked website. We are not responsible for the content of these sites, any products or services that may be offered through these sites, or any other use of the linked websites.
We employ security measures designed to protect against unauthorized access of personal information we collect. However, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information.
Chef Merito reserves the right to change this Policy. If we decide to make changes, we will post the updated Policy on our Website so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and how we disclose it. The date this Policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. We encourage you to review our Privacy Policy to stay informed. Where required by applicable data protection laws, we will notify you of any material changes to this Policy and obtain your consent, if required.
Regional Privacy Rights
Certain state regulations may provide you with additional rights regarding our use of your personal information. To learn more about these rights, see Additional Regional Notices.
If you need help or have questions regarding this Policy, please visit our Contact Us page, email us at info@chefmerito.com, including a subject line “Privacy Request,” or call 1 (800) Merito-1, or contact us by regular mail addressed to:
Chef Merito, LLC.
7915 Sepulveda Boulevard
Van Nys, CA 91405
Attn: Privacy Request
This portion of the Privacy Policy supplements the information contained in our Policy above to describe the rights we provide to consumers, which are, for clarity, residents of certain states that have privacy regulations that are applicable to us. For residents of states without privacy regulations, or where your state regulation does not cover all of the following rights or choices, we will consider requests regarding such rights but will apply our discretion in how we process such requests. For states that have passed privacy regulations, but are not yet in effect, we will also consider applying those state law rights prior to the effective date of such laws but will do so in our discretion.
As permitted by applicable privacy regulations, certain requests that you submit to us are subject to an identity verification process (“verifiable consumer request”) as described below in the Exercising Your Rights section. We will not fulfill such requests unless you have provided sufficient information for us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we have collected personal information.
Your Rights and Choices
The applicable privacy regulations may provide the following rights regarding your personal information:
Right to Know – Categories Request
You have the right to request, twice in a 12-month period, that Chef Merito disclose the following information about the personal information we have collected about you during the past 12 months:
- The categories of personal information we collected about you.
- The categories of sources from which we collected the personal information.
- Our business or commercial purpose for which we collected, sold, or shared the personal information.
- The categories of third parties with whom we sold or shared the personal information, by category or categories of personal information for each category of third parties to whom the personal information was sold or shared.
- The categories of personal information about you that we disclosed for a business purpose, and the categories of persons to whom we disclosed that information for a business purpose.
Right to Know – Specific Pieces
You have the right to request a transportable copy of the specific pieces of personal information we collected about you in the 12-month period preceding your request. Please note that personal information is retained by us for various time periods, so there may be certain information that we have collected about you that we do not retain for a 12-month period and thus, it would not be able to be included in our response to you. Also, under your applicable state’s law, you may be limited to a certain number of “right to know” requests in any 12-month period.
Right to Delete
You have the right to request that Chef Merito delete certain personal information that we collected from you. Please understand that we cannot delete personal information in those situations where our retention is required for our own internal business purposes or otherwise permitted by relevant U.S. privacy laws (such as fraud prevention or legal compliance). When we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.
Right to Correct Information
You have the right to request that we correct any inaccuracies that you find in your personal information maintained by us. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to correct any inaccurate information and we will instruct our service providers or any contractors to correct such information. We will also inform you whether or not we have complied with your request, including any basis for denial of the request.
Sensitive Personal Information
Depending on your state of residence, you may have had to provide consent for us to process sensitive personal information, as that term is defined under your applicable state’s law. Subject to certain exceptions, you may have the right to revoke such consent. You can make such a request using the methods described below in Exercising Your Rights.
To exercise your rights as described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by either:
- Calling 1 (800) Merito-1
- Email: info@chefmerito.com with the subject line “Privacy Request.”
Only you, or a person registered with the appropriate governmental authority that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child. If you submit a request on behalf of another person, we may require proof of authorization and verification of identity directly from the person for whom you are submitting a request.
To help protect your privacy and maintain security, we take steps to verify your identity before granting you access to your personal information or considering your deletion or correction request. The verifiable consumer request must:
- Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative, which may include (i) your name and email address if we have collected your information for marketing purposes or (ii) your name, email address, home postal address, and certain account information, depending on your request, if we have collected information for providing you with our products or services.
- Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.
We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.
Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us. However, we do consider requests made through your password protected account sufficiently verified when the request relates to personal information associated with that specific account.
We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.
Response Timing
- We will confirm receipt of your request within ten (10) business days. If you do not receive confirmation within the 10-day timeframe, please contact us by calling 1 (800) Merito - 1 or by emailing us at info@chefmerito.com with the subject line “Privacy Request.
We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 45 additional days), we will inform you of the reason and the extension period.
We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.
Appeal Rights
You may have a right to appeal any denial of your request. Please email us at info@chefmerito.com including the subject line “Privacy Appeal” and in your email include your name, email address, and basis for the appeal request.
Personal Information Opt-Out Rights
Non-Cookie Personal Information. [2] [3] We do not disclose your non-cookie personal information to a third party unless you direct us to, for instance, if you complete a form. The form will describe the information collected, the purpose for the collection, and how the information will be disclosed. If you do not agree to the disclosing of such information, you should not complete and submit the form as the form’s submission will act as an “opt-in” for the disclosing of such information.
Cookie Personal Information. If you would like to submit a request to opt-out of our processing of your cookie information, you need to exercise your request on our cookie management tool (e.g., our cookie banner). You can also click on our “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link in the footer of our homepage. Then, activate your choices through use of the toggle.
Global Privacy Control (“GPC”). Some privacy laws require us to process GPC signals, which may also be referred to as opt-out preference signals or opt-out mechanisms. GPC is a signal sent by a platform, technology, or mechanism, enabled by individuals on their devices or browsers that communicate the individual’s choice to opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal data. To use GPC, you can download an internet browser or plugin to use on your current internet browser and follow the settings to enable GPC. We receive and process GPC signals on our Website. We process GPC signals in a frictionless manner, which means that we do not: (i) charge a fee for use of our service if you have enabled GPC, (ii) change your experience with our Website if you use GPC, or (iii) display a notification, pop-up, text, graphic, animation, sound, video, or any interstitial in response to the GPC.
Non-Discrimination
We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights under the various state regulations. For example, we will not deny you goods or services, charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties, provide you with a different level or quality of goods or services, or suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.
California Shine the Light
Under California’s “Shine the Light” law, California residents who provide personal information in obtaining products or services for personal, family, or household use are entitled to request and obtain from us once a calendar year information about the customer information we disclosed, if any, with other businesses for their own direct marketing uses. If applicable, this information would include the categories of customer information and the names and addresses of those businesses with which we disclosed customer information for the immediately prior calendar year (e.g., requests made in 2025 will receive information regarding 2024 disclosure activities.
To obtain this information, please send an email message to info@chefmerito.com with “Shine the Light Request” in the subject line and in the body of your message. If applicable, we will provide the requested information to you at your e-mail address in response.
Please be aware that not all information is covered by the “Shine the Light” requirements and only information on covered disclosures will be included in our response.
Help
If you need help or have questions regarding this Policy, please visit our Contact Us page, email us at info@chefmerito.com, including a subject line “Privacy Request,” or call 1 (800) Merito-1, or contact us by regular mail addressed to:
Chef Merito, LLC.
7915 Sepulveda Boulevard
Van Nys, CA 91405
Attn: Privacy Request
