Privacy policy.

Last updated August 18, 2026

This privacy notice for Austin & Gardner GbR (“Company,” “we,” “us,” “our”) describes how and why we process your information when you use our services (“Services”), including when you:

• Visit heatawards.eu, or any site of ours linking to this notice
• Enter a sauce, apply to judge, or apply for sponsorship in the European Hot Sauce Awards
• Sign up for our newsletter, or otherwise contact us

Questions or concerns about general use of the Services? Contact us at heataward@gmail.com. For matters relating specifically to this privacy notice or exercising your data protection rights, contact contact@republicofheat.com.

Summary of key points

1. What information we collect

Provided directly by you:

• Name, email address, phone number, postal address — collected when you submit a competition entry, apply to judge, enquire about sponsorship, use the contact form, or subscribe to the newsletter.
• Business details (company name, VAT number) where relevant to entries or sponsorship invoicing.
• Content you submit as part of an entry (sauce details, ingredients, allergen information).

Payment data: If you pay an entry fee, judge participation fee, or sponsorship invoice, payment is processed by Stripe. We do not store full card details ourselves — Stripe handles this. See Stripe’s privacy policy.

Automatically collected: Limited technical/analytics data via Google Analytics (GA4), only where you’ve consented via our cookie banner. See our Cookie Policy for full detail on what’s collected and how to manage consent.

2. How we process your information

We process your information to:

• Deliver our Services — running the competition, processing entries and judging logistics, fulfilling sponsorship agreements, responding to enquiries.
• Communicate with you — transactional emails (entry confirmations, judging updates) sent via our SMTP email infrastructure, and newsletter updates if you’ve opted in (stored via a Supabase-backed subscription list — we do not use a third-party email marketing platform).
• Process payments and prevent fraud, via Stripe.
• Comply with legal obligations, including German/EU tax and business record-keeping requirements.

3. Legal bases (EU/UK)

Under GDPR and UK GDPR, we rely on:

• Consent — e.g. newsletter sign-up, analytics cookies. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• Performance of a contract — e.g. processing your competition entry or sponsorship agreement.
• Legal obligation — e.g. tax and accounting records.
• Legitimate interests — e.g. responding to enquiries, maintaining the Services securely.

We are the data controller for the personal information described in this notice.

4. Who we share information with

• Stripe (payment processing) — see their privacy policy linked above.
• Google Analytics (GA4) — only if you’ve consented via the cookie banner; see Cookie Policy.
• We may share information in connection with a business transfer (e.g. merger or acquisition) affecting the Company.
• We do not sell personal information to third parties, and have not done so in the past 12 months.

5. How long we keep your information

We keep personal information only as long as necessary for the purposes described here, or as required by German/EU tax and accounting law (which may require longer retention for invoicing/payment records — typically several years under German commercial law). When there’s no ongoing need, we delete or anonymise the data.

6. How we keep information safe

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your data. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, so we can’t guarantee absolute security, but we take this seriously and will notify you as required by law if a breach affecting your data occurs.

7. Children

Our Services are not directed at, and we do not knowingly collect data from, anyone under 18. If you believe a minor’s data has been collected, contact us at heataward@gmail.com and we’ll take reasonable steps to delete it.

8. Your rights

If you’re in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, you have the right to:

• Access a copy of your personal information
• Request correction or deletion
• Restrict or object to processing
• Request data portability
• Withdraw consent at any time (without affecting processing that already happened lawfully)

To exercise any of these, email heataward@gmail.com. If you believe we’re processing your data unlawfully, you can also complain to your local data protection authority — for Germany, the Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, or find your national authority at ec.europa.eu.

9. Changes to this notice

We may update this notice from time to time; the “Last updated” date above will reflect the latest revision. Material changes will be posted prominently on this page.

10. Contact us

Austin & Gardner GbR is the data controller of your information for the purposes of this notice. Authorized partners: Simon Gardner & Nathan Austin.