Privacy policy

What we store

When a kitchen is set up: the site code, the kitchen's name, town, time zone, type of kitchen, shift times, expected logs per shift, food cost per pound if the owner enters it, the crew screen language, whether the kitchen publishes, its item list and containers, where its waste bin goes, and, if the owner answers, how they heard about Half Pan. If the kitchen uses the tools, also which tools are on, its faith settings, its meals and quantity sheets, its fridges and freezers, and the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of the organizations it donates food to. The crew PIN and the owner key are stored only in a scrambled (hashed) form, so nobody can read them back, including us.

Each log: the date and time, the shift, the item and its food group, why it was thrown out, the weight, where it went (like trash or donated), the container weight taken off, a piece count if it was counted, and its dollar value if the owner entered costs. A food pantry can also record where the food came from (like a food bank or a food drive) and why USDA food was no longer usable, and logs made from an event pan sweep are marked as estimates. A crew member can add a short note (up to 140 characters) and a small photo.

What the kitchen tools record, if the kitchen uses them: meal plans (reservations, how many to cook for, the prep list, how many came, what was left), events (the event's name, guest counts, pans left at close, bag counts), tray scores (the item, how much was left, an optional reason like “too much,” and an optional room, unit, or route code, which has to contain a number so it can't hold a name), audit days, the day's menu and served counts by meal, pans on the serving line (times, temperatures, where the food went, allergens, the partner it went to), share table counts and temperatures, deliveries (the source, the donor or store if entered, the item, weight or count, the date on the label, its condition), and storage temperatures. Event names and notes are free text, so please keep people's names out of them.

Served counts a kitchen chooses to enter, such as transactions or meals for the day.

Training quiz results: which booklet, the score, and the language. No name.

When someone uses Ask Half Pan: a scrambled (hashed) version of their IP address, or the kitchen's site code in the crew app, and the time, so we can limit how many questions one person sends. These are deleted after about two days. We don't store the questions or the answers.

We don't ask for names, email addresses, phone numbers, or home addresses, and there are no user accounts.

What stays on the phone

So the crew app works without signal, the phone keeps the site code and the PIN or owner key used to sign in, a copy of recent logs, logs that haven't sent yet, tool records and any that haven't sent yet, tray scores still being counted, and a few settings like pounds or kilograms and the last tool used. Signing out removes the sign-in. The site also keeps copies of pages it has opened so they load offline. An Ask Half Pan conversation is kept in that browser tab until the tab is closed.

What goes public

Nothing, unless the kitchen's owner turns publishing on. When it's on, the kitchen's page and the open data show pounds, items and food groups, reasons, where food went, coverage, the town, and the public name the owner picked. They never show notes, photos, food cost, served counts, anything from the kitchen tools, or anything about a person.

Published data is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, so anyone can download and reuse it. If a kitchen stops publishing, its numbers come off this site, but we can't pull back copies someone already downloaded.

Who helps run it

• Vercel hosts the site. Like any web host, it records basic request details such as IP address, browser type, and the page requested, to keep the site running and secure.
• Supabase stores the database.
• Anthropic writes the AI answers, only when AI is turned on for the site. What gets sent to Anthropic's API, and when:
  • Ask Half Pan: the questions and the conversation so far. In the crew app, also the kitchen's numbers from the last 28 days: pounds by item, reason, shift, and day, coverage, where food went, and total food cost if entered. If the kitchen uses the tools, also counts from them: meals cooked for and served, guests and pounds left at events, tray scores by item, pans pulled, share table counts, deliveries by source, and storage units that read out of range. Never notes, photos, names, event names, or donors.
  • Rewriting a huddle: the huddle's numbers, top item and reason, the type of kitchen, and up to four short lines from the tools, like a freezer that read warm or what to use first.
  • Building an item list with AI: the menu text or photo the owner chooses to send.
  Anthropic handles that data under its own privacy policy. Half Pan doesn't keep it.
• Unsplash serves some of the photos on the public pages, so your browser loads those from Unsplash's servers.

We don't sell or rent data, and we don't share it with anyone else.

Cookies and tracking

Half Pan doesn't use cookies for tracking, analytics, or ads, and there's no analytics script on the site.

How long we keep it

A kitchen's data stays until the kitchen is deleted. Hosting records are kept for the short time Vercel keeps them.

Your choices

With the owner key, a kitchen's owner can, from the Site tab in the crew app:

• change any setting, or turn publishing off,
• download every log as a spreadsheet, and monthly forms from the tools,
• delete the whole kitchen, with every log, served count, tool record, and quiz score.

A crew member can undo a log from the last 24 hours on the Log screen, and remove an event, a temperature reading, or a delivery saved in the last 24 hours. If you want help with any of this, or want something deleted and can't do it yourself, contact us.

Security

The site only runs over HTTPS. The database can only be reached from the app's own server, and the PIN and owner key are stored as salted hashes. No system is perfectly secure, so please keep personal or sensitive information out of notes and photos.

Children

Half Pan is a tool for kitchens. It isn't directed at children under 13, and it doesn't knowingly collect personal information from them.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes too.

Contact

Questions or requests: message Sai on Instagram or LinkedIn.