Cookie policy

When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Our website puts small files (known as 'cookies') onto your computer to collect information about how you browse the site.

Cookies are used to:

• measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs
• remember the notifications you've seen so that we don't show them to you again

Cookies on food.gov.uk and ratings.food.gov.uk aren't used to identify you personally.

Change your cookie settings

You can change which cookies you're happy for us to use:

• Change cookie settings on ratings.food.gov.uk

Find out more about how to manage cookies.

Cookies on food.gov.uk and ratings.food.gov.uk

Strictly necessary cookies

Cookies message

Name: cookie-preferences, cookieconsent_dismissed
Purpose: used to remember whether or not you clicked accept or don't accept for optional cookies

Cloudflare

Name: __cfduid
Purpose: set to identify trusted web traffic, it does not correspond to any user id in the web application, nor does the cookie store any personally identifiable information
Expires: 5 years

Further details on cookies set by Cloudflare.

Cookies that measure website use

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use food.gov.uk. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements.

Google Analytics stores information about:

• the pages you visit
• how long you spend on each page
• how you got to the site
• what you click on while you're visiting the site

We don't allow Google to use or share our analytics data.

Name: _ga
Purpose: helps us count how many people visit food.gov.uk by tracking if you've visited before
Expires: 2 years

Name: _gid
Purpose: helps us count how many people visit food.gov.uk by tracking if you've visited before
Expires: 24 hours

Name: _gat
Purpose: used to manage the rate at which page view requests are made. This cookie does not store any user information
Expires: the expiry settings are set by Google

Name: _utma
Purpose: lets us know if you've visited before, so we can count how many of our visitors are new to food.gov.uk or to a certain page
Expires: 2 years

Name: _utmb
Purpose: works with _utmc to calculate the average length of time you spend on food.gov.uk
Expires: 30 minutes

Name: _utmc
Purpose: works with _utmb to calculate when you close your browser
Expires: when you close your browser

Name: _utmz
Purpose: tells us how you reached food.gov.uk (for example from another website or a search engine)
Expires: 6 months