Kitcha Food Safety, Allergen and Dietary Notice

1. Food Safety Commitment

1.1 The commitment

Food safety, hygiene, quality, traceability and customer information are core Kitcha responsibilities.

1.2 What that means operationally

Kitcha produces food in its own production factory, with its own staff, and manages production, hygiene, quality, packaging, fulfilment and delivery through controls appropriate to the products and services it offers.

Because Kitcha owns the whole chain rather than brokering between suppliers and couriers, responsibility for the condition of the food does not pass between companies on its way to you, and Kitcha does not answer a safety question by pointing at somebody else.

1.3 Customer information is part of safety

Your source of information about what is in the food is part of the safety system rather than an add-on to it. A control that keeps an allergen out of a meal is only effective if the person eating it knows what to look for, which is why sections 2 and 4 sit next to each other.

1.4 Status of this Notice

This Notice is incorporated into the Kitcha Terms of Use where it applies and was made reasonably available before the transaction. It controls product safety and ingredient and allergen information. Personal information you give Kitcha about allergies and health is governed by the Privacy Policy. Mandatory law prevails over both.

2. Ingredients and Allergens

2.1 The position

Kitcha provides the ingredient and allergen information required by applicable law and published for the product. Customers with severe allergies must review the information and contact Kitcha before ordering where it does not answer a material allergy concern.

2.2 Where to find it

Ingredient and allergen information for a product is published with that product in the Kitcha application, before you order it rather than after it arrives. If you cannot find the information for a product you are considering, treat that as the situation described in 2.1 and contact Kitcha before ordering.

2.3 Contacting Kitcha before ordering

Where the published information does not answer a material allergy concern, contact Kitcha before you order, not after. Write to support@kitcha.ng, or raise it through the Kitcha application, and say which product, which person and which allergen.

2.4 Recording an allergy on your account

Entering an allergy against a person on your plan is different from asking a question about a product. Entering it means every meal produced for that person is built around it, as section 12 of the Terms of Use sets out. Do both: record it, and ask where the published information does not settle a specific concern.

2.5 Changes to recipes

Recipes and ingredients can change for reasons of supply, safety or quality. Published product information is updated when they do. If you have a severe allergy, review the current information rather than relying on what a product contained previously.

3. Cross-Contact

3.1 The position

Kitcha controls production environments to manage cross-contact risk but does not describe an ordinary shared production environment as completely free of cross-contact risk unless a validated process supports that statement.

3.2 What cross-contact is

Cross-contact is the unintended transfer of an allergen from one food to another through shared equipment, surfaces, utensils, hands or air. It is different from contamination by a microorganism, and it is not removed by cooking.

3.3 What Kitcha does about it

• Prepares food for a person with a recorded restriction on separate boards and in separate containers;
• Passes the restriction to the kitchen staff and quality control officers who need it to produce the meal;
• Records the restriction against the order so that it can be verified before dispatch;
• Controls the production environment to manage cross-contact risk generally.

3.4 What Kitcha does not claim

Managing a risk is not eliminating it. Kitcha does not describe an ordinary shared production environment as completely free of cross-contact risk. Where a validated process supports a stronger statement for a particular product, Kitcha will say so for that product and will say what the validation is.

3.5 What this means for a severe allergy

If a reaction to a trace amount would be serious, take the statement in 3.1 at face value when you decide. Raise the specific concern before ordering, as 2.3 provides, and base your decision on the answer you receive rather than on a general label.

4. Customer Allergy Duties

4.1 The duties

• Accurately disclose allergies/intolerances/dietary restrictions.
• Review current product information.
• Raise a specific serious allergy concern before ordering where information is insufficient.
• Do not rely solely on a general dietary label for a severe allergy.

4.2 Disclose per person, not per account

Allergies are recorded against the individual who will eat the food, not against the account. A household plan may feed several people with different requirements, and each person's restriction has to be recorded against them for the meal built for them to be correct.

4.3 Accuracy and completeness

Disclose the allergen rather than the diagnosis. Kitcha needs to know what must not be in the food. It does not need clinical notes, prescriptions or test results, and the Privacy Policy asks you not to send them.

4.4 Keep it current

Update a restriction when it changes, including when a person is newly diagnosed, when an allergy is outgrown, and when a child joins or leaves a plan. Food is produced from what is recorded at the time of production.

4.5 Why a general label is not enough

A label such as vegetarian, dairy free or nut free describes the recipe as formulated. It is not a statement that the meal was produced under conditions designed to exclude a specific allergen for a specific person, and section 3 explains why that distinction matters.

4.6 If you withdraw an allergy record

You may remove allergy information at any time under the Privacy Policy. If you do, Kitcha can no longer cook around the allergy it describes and cannot represent that food produced afterwards is safe for that person. Kitcha will tell you that before acting on the removal.

5. Nutrition and Wellness

5.1 The position

Nutrition and wellness information is general food information unless a separately described service states otherwise. Kitcha ordinary food service does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease.

5.2 What Kitcha publishes

Where Kitcha publishes nutritional values, they are close estimates derived from Kitcha recipes at the portion supplied. They are not laboratory analysis of the individual meal you received, and small variation between portions is inherent in cooked food.

5.3 What Kitcha does not claim

• Kitcha does not claim that a food treats, cures or prevents any illness;
• Kitcha does not present a meal or a plan as a medical intervention;
• Kitcha does not make a therapeutic claim in ordinary food service.

5.4 Plans built around a goal

Kitcha will cook to a diet you or your clinician specify, including a plan built around weight, training or a stated health goal. Doing so is Kitcha following an instruction, not Kitcha giving clinical advice, and the responsibility for whether that diet is right for you remains with you and your clinician.

5.5 Take medical advice from a clinician

6. Post-Delivery Handling

6.1 The duties

• Follow product-specific storage/handling instructions.
• Protect products from contamination or alteration after delivery.
• Follow preparation/reheating instructions where provided.
• Do not knowingly alter or contaminate a product and misrepresent its condition.

6.2 Where Kitcha's control ends

Kitcha controls the food from the ingredient to the handover. After the handover the conditions the food is kept in are yours. Storage, handling and preparation instructions exist because the safety of the food depends on them being followed.

6.3 Storage

Follow the instruction given for the specific product. Food that is intended to be eaten on arrival should be eaten on arrival. Food that is intended to be kept should be kept as instructed and for no longer than stated.

6.4 Protecting against contamination

Keep the food covered and away from raw items, surfaces and utensils that could contaminate it, and do not decant it into containers that have not been cleaned. This is ordinary kitchen practice and this Notice asks no more of you than that.

6.5 Reheating

Where a reheating instruction is given, follow it. Reheating does not remove an allergen, and it does not make safe a food that has been kept outside its stated conditions.

6.6 The last duty

Do not knowingly alter or contaminate a product and misrepresent its condition. This is directed at deliberate conduct, as section 8 of the Customer Responsibilities and Acceptable Use document sets out. An honest report about food that turned out to be wrong is not this.

7. Suspected Unsafe Product

7.1 What to do

If you reasonably believe a product may be unsafe, do not consume further where appropriate, seek emergency or medical care where needed, preserve relevant product/packaging where reasonably safe, and contact Kitcha promptly.

7.2 In order

1. Stop eating it. Do not continue in order to establish whether you were right.
2. Get medical care if anyone needs it. This comes before contacting Kitcha, always.
3. Keep the food and its packaging where it is reasonably safe to do so. The container code identifies the batch, and without it a trace is much harder.
4. Contact Kitcha promptly through the Kitcha application and at admin@kitcha.ng.

7.3 "Reasonably believe"

You do not need to be certain, and you do not need to be right. A reasonable belief is enough to trigger this section. Kitcha would far rather investigate a report that turns out to be nothing than not hear about one that was something.

7.4 What Kitcha needs from you

• The order reference, or the date and the delivery window;
• Which product;
• What you observed, in your own words;
• Whether anybody has been unwell, and whether they have had medical attention;
• Whether you still have the product and its packaging.

7.5 Nothing here delays medical care

8. Serious Incident Response

8.1 The position

Suspected contamination, allergen exposure, illness, adverse reaction or injury triggers Kitcha incident procedures, which may include quarantine, traceability review, testing, notification, withdrawal, recall, regulatory engagement and remediation.

8.2 Why these are not refund tickets

An ordinary complaint asks what should happen to one order. A serious food or health allegation asks a second and more urgent question: is anybody else at risk from the same batch. That question is not answered by processing a refund, so these matters go to Kitcha's incident procedures, handled by different people on a different timescale.

8.3 What each step means

8.4 You may be contacted without having complained

Where a batch question arises, Kitcha may contact you about food you have received even if nothing appeared wrong with it and you have raised nothing. A contact of that kind is a safety measure and is not a statement about your particular order.

8.5 Remedies still apply

Handling a matter as an incident does not displace your rights in respect of your own order. The Cancellation, Refund and Credit Policy and mandatory law continue to apply to it.

9. Traceability

9.1 The position

Kitcha maintains records that support product and order traceability and incident investigation.

9.2 What is recorded

Kitcha operates barcode and digital traceability across inventory and materials, kitchen production, quality control, packaging, dispatch, delivery, customer orders and feedback, together with the authorised personnel associated with recorded events.

9.3 What traceability makes possible

1. Tracing a specific meal backwards to the batch, the ingredients and the checks applied to it;
2. Tracing a batch forwards to every order it went into and every customer who received one;
3. Answering a complaint from a record of what happened rather than from recollection;
4. Confining a withdrawal or recall to what is actually affected rather than to everything.

9.4 Retention

Traceability records are retained in accordance with the Privacy Policy, which explains that food safety and traceability requirements are among the lawful grounds on which some records are kept after an account is closed.

10. Recall

10.1 The position

Kitcha may withdraw or recall products where a safety, quality, authenticity or regulatory concern exists. Customers must follow recall instructions.

10.2 The four grounds

10.3 How Kitcha will contact you

Through the Kitcha application, and through the contact channels registered on your account. This is one of the reasons the Customer Responsibilities document asks you to keep your phone number and email address current.

10.4 Following recall instructions

A recall instruction will tell you which product and batch is affected and what to do with it. Follow it. Do not eat the product, do not give it to anybody else, and do not ignore the notice because your own portion seemed fine. A recall is issued about a batch, not about your portion.

10.5 You are not out of pocket

Where a product is recalled, the Cancellation, Refund and Credit Policy and mandatory law apply to it. Returning or disposing of recalled product as instructed does not prejudice any right you have.

11. Children and Vulnerable People

11.1 Who this concerns

Food ordered for a child at home or at school, for an elderly person, for somebody who is pregnant, or for somebody whose health makes them more vulnerable to a food safety failure.

11.2 The person ordering is responsible for the information

Where you order for another person, record their allergies and dietary restrictions against them, not against yourself, and keep those records current. A child fed at school is being fed on the basis of what an adult entered.

11.3 Tell the person receiving it

Where food goes to a school, a workplace or another person's address, make sure whoever receives it knows it is coming, what it is, and any storage or handling instruction that applies before it is eaten.

11.4 Raise concerns before ordering

The duty in 2.3 to raise a material allergy concern before ordering applies with more force where the person eating cannot check for themselves.

12. Contact

If anybody needs medical attention, obtain it before contacting Kitcha.

13. Applicable Law and Statutory Rights

This document operates under Nigerian law and other laws applicable to the particular Kitcha service or activity. Nothing in this document is intended to exclude, waive, restrict or transfer a right, remedy, liability or obligation that applicable law does not permit Kitcha or a customer to exclude, waive, restrict or transfer. Mandatory law prevails.