Food delivery company HelloFresh has been fined for sending millions of spam emails and texts to customers. The recipe box firm was told to pay £140,000 following a 2022 investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). It found 79 million emails and one million texts were sent out over a seven-month spamming campaign. The ICO said it marked a "clear breach of trust". HelloFresh said it had made changes to its SMS and email policy. Investigations began in March 2022 after 14 complaints were made directly to the regulator, and another 8,729 were made to the 7726 spam message reporting service. The ICO found HelloFresh continued to contact some individuals even after they had asked it to stop. It also found customers were not given enough information that their data would be used for marketing for up to 24 months after cancelling their subscriptions. HelloFresh was founded in 2011. Members choose meals from a changing online menu and receive recipes and fresh ingredients in a box once a week ready for cooking. Subscribers are often attracted by deals with up to 60% off their first box. The recipe box market is "very tough", according to food retail retail expert Teresa Wickham, with competitors including Gusto and the Mindful Chef. "It's a highly competitive business," Ms Wickham said. "Overhead costs, with labour, electricity and fuel to deliver, are high. But [profit] margins in horticulture and wholesale are quite low. It's cut-throat." The former supermarket director said the ICO investigation would damage HelloFresh. "Any fine will hurt them," she said. "It will affect their brand and their bottom line."
