Food delivery company HelloFresh has been fined £140,000 after sending millions of unsolicited marketing messages to customers in a seven-month campaign, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has announced.
An investigation found that the recipe box firm sent 79 million emails and one million texts between 2021 and 2022, with some recipients continuing to receive messages even after they had asked to stop. The ICO also discovered that customers were not adequately informed that their data would be used for marketing for up to 24 months after cancelling their subscriptions.
The regulator said it received 14 direct complaints and noted a further 8,729 reports to the 7726 spam reporting service. Andy Curry, head of investigations at the ICO, described the case as a 'clear breach of trust', adding that customers were hit with a barrage of unwanted texts and were not clearly told how to opt out.
HelloFresh said it had taken the ICO's feedback seriously and made changes to its SMS and email policy. The company stated that customers are at the centre of everything it does and that it takes data protection obligations extremely seriously.
Food retail expert Teresa Wickham commented that the fine would damage HelloFresh's brand and bottom line, though she noted that the recipe box market is 'cut-throat' and that consumers now expect their data to be widely available.
