Mizkan America, Inc. Privacy Policy

Effective Date: April 30, 2024

1. Introduction

Mizkan America, Inc. (“Mizkan” or “we” or “us”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting it through our compliance with this Privacy Policy (the “Privacy Policy”).

This Privacy Policy describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide to us, including when you visit the following websites: www.mizkan.com; www.bertolli.com; www.ragu.com; www.hollandhouseflavors.com; www.nakanoflavors.com; www.mizkanflavors.com; and www.cucinamoderna.com (collectively, our “Website“), and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

This Privacy Policy applies to information we collect:

• On our Website.
• In email, text, and other electronic messages between you and our Website.
• When you interact with our advertising and applications on third-party websites and services, if those applications or advertising include links to this Privacy Policy.
• As otherwise described below in this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to information collected by:

• Us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by Mizkan or any third party (including our affiliates and subsidiaries); or
• Any third party (including our affiliates and subsidiaries), including through any application or content (including advertising), that may link to or be accessible from or through the Website.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. By accessing or using our Website, you agree to this Privacy Policy, and if you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, you may not use our Website. This Privacy Policy may change from time to time (see Section 9–Changes to Our Privacy Policy–below). Your continued use of our Website after we make changes to this Privacy Policy is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the Privacy Policy periodically for updates.

2. Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It

We collect several types of information from and about users of our Website, including information:

• By which you may be personally identified, such as name, postal address, email address, telephone number, or any other identifier by which you may be contacted online or offline (“personal information“);
• That is about you but individually does not identify you; and/or
• About your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Website, and usage details.

We collect this information:

• Directly from you when you provide it to us.
• Automatically as you navigate through our Website. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies.
• From third parties, for example, our customer engagement business partner that fields calls to our customer hotline.

Information You Provide to Us

The information we collect on or through our Website may include:

• Information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website. We may also ask you for information when you enter a contest or promotion sponsored by us, and when you report a problem with our Website.
• Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us.
• Your responses to surveys that we might ask you to complete for research purposes.
• Details of transactions you carry out through our Website and of the fulfillment of your orders.
• Your search queries on the Website.
• Any other information that you may provide to us.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies 

As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

• Details of your visits to our Website, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website.
• Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

We also may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking).

Do Not Track is a technology that enables users to opt out of tracking by websites they do not visit directly. There currently is no industry standard or consensus as to what “Do Not Track” requires in this context. Therefore, Mizkan does not currently monitor or take any action with respect to Do Not Track technology; if this changes this Privacy Policy will be updated accordingly. To find out more about “Do Not Track,” please visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com

The information we collect automatically may include only statistical data and may not include personal information, but we may maintain it or associate it with personal information we collect in other ways. This information helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to:

• Estimate our audience size and usage patterns.
• Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Website according to your individual interests.
• Speed up your searches.
• Recognize you when you return to our Website.

The technologies we may use for this automatic data collection may include:

• Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website. For more information about cookies, please see https://allaboutcookies.org/ or https://www.aboutcookies.org/cookie-faq.
• Web Beacons. Pages of our Website and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit Mizkan, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity).
• Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Website may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on our Website. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies. To learn how you can manage your Flash cookie settings, visit the Flash player settings page on Adobe’s website.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

• To present our Website and its contents to you.
• To provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us.
• To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
• To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
• To notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide though it.
• To allow you to participate in interactive features on our Website.
• In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
• For any other purpose with your consent.

We may also use your information to contact you about our products that may be of interest to you. If you do not want us to use your information in this way, please check the relevant box located on the form on which we collect your data.  For more information, see Section 5 (Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information) below.

4. Disclosure of Your Information

We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.

We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide as described in this Privacy Policy:

• To our subsidiaries and affiliates.
• To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business.
• To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Mizkan’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by Mizkan about our Website users is among the assets transferred.
• To third parties to market their products or services to you if you have consented to these disclosures.
• To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it.
• For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
• With your consent.

We may also disclose your personal information:

• To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
• To enforce or apply our Terms and Conditions (available at https://www.mizkan.com/website-terms-and-conditions/) and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes.
• If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of Mizkan, our customers, or others.

The categories of personal information we may disclose include:

• Name
• Address
• Email address
• Phone number
• Shipping tracking numbers

5. Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information

We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information:

• Tracking Technologies and Advertising. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
• Promotional Offers from Mizkan. If you do not wish to have your contact information used by Mizkan to promote our products or services, you can opt-out by checking the relevant box located on the form on which we collect your data or at any other time by sending us an email stating your request to privacy@mizkan.com. If we have sent you a promotional email, you may send us a return email using the return email address provided therein asking to be omitted from future email distributions.

We do not control third parties’ collection or use of your information to serve interest-based advertising. However these third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way. You can opt out of receiving targeted ads from members of the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI“) on the NAI’s website at https://thenai.org/.

Residents of certain states, such as California, Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, Utah, and Virginia may have additional personal information rights and choices. Please see Section 11 (Your State Privacy Rights) below for more information.

6. Accessing, Correcting, or Deleting Your Information

You may also send us an email at privacy@mizkan.com to request access to, correct or delete any personal information that you have provided to us. We cannot delete your personal information except by also deleting your user account, if applicable. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.

Residents of certain states, such as California, Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, Utah, and Virginia, may have additional personal information rights and choices. Please see Section 11 (Your State Privacy Rights) below for more information.

7. Data Security

We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Website. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Website.

8. Children Under the Age of 18

Our Website is not intended for children under the age of 18 (“Minors”). Minors may not provide any personal information via the Website. We do not knowingly collect personal information from Minors. If you are a Minor, do not use or provide any information on this Website or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address.  If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a Minor, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a Minor, please contact us at privacy@mizkan.com.

9. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

The date the Privacy Policy was last revised is identified at the top.  If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal information, we will notify you through a notice on the Privacy Policy home page. You are responsible for periodically visiting our Website and this Privacy Policy to check for any changes.

10. Contact Information

To ask questions about this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices, contact us at:

privacy@mizkan.com

Mizkan America, Inc.

1661 Feehanville Drive

Mount Prospect, IL 60056

Attn:  Privacy Compliance

11. Your State Privacy Rights

State consumer privacy laws may provide their residents with additional rights regarding our use of their personal information. To learn more about California residents’ privacy rights, see Section 12 (California Privacy Rights) below.

Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and Utah each provide their state residents with rights to:

• Confirm whether we process their personal information.
• Access and delete certain personal information.
• Data portability.
• Opt-out of personal data processing for targeted advertising and sales.

Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia also provide their state residents with rights to:

• Correct inaccuracies in their personal information, taking into account the information’s nature and processing purpose.
• Opt-out of profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

To exercise any of these rights please submit an email to privacy@mizkan.com.

Nevada provides its residents with a limited right to opt-out of certain personal information sales. Please note that we do not currently sell data triggering Nevada’s opt-out requirements.

12. Notice of California Privacy Rights

This section of the Privacy Policy applies only to Website users who reside in the State of California (“consumers”). We are providing this notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, together with implementing regulations (collectively, “CCPA”).  Any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this Policy.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to workforce-related personal information collected from California-based employees, job applicants, contractors, or similar individuals (see [link to employee/applicable privacy notice]).

Information We Collect

Our Website collects information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer, household, or device (“personal information“). Personal information does not include:

• Publicly available information from government records.
• Deidentified or aggregated consumer information.

In particular, our Website has collected the following categories of personal information from consumers within the last twelve (12) months:

We obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:

• Directly from you. For example, from forms you complete or products and services you purchase.
• Indirectly from you. For example, from observing your actions on our Website.

Use of Personal Information

Mizkan does not sell or “share” (as defined in CCPA) personal information.

We may use or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the following purposes:

• To fulfill or meet the reason you provided the information.
• To provide, support, personalize, and develop our Website, products, and services.
• To process your requests, purchases, transactions, and payments and prevent transactional fraud.
• To provide you with support and to respond to your inquiries, including to investigate and address your concerns and monitor and improve our responses.
• To personalize your Website experience and to deliver content and product and service offerings relevant to your interests.
• To help maintain the safety, security, and integrity of our Website, products and services, databases and other technology assets, and business.
• For testing, research, analysis, and product development, including to develop and improve our Website, products, and services.
• To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
• As described to you when collecting your personal information or as otherwise set forth in the CCPA.
• To evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us about our Website users is among the assets transferred.

We will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.

Disclosing Personal Information

We may disclose your personal information to a third party for a business purpose. In the preceding twelve (12) months, Mizkan has disclosed personal information for a business purpose to the categories of third parties referenced in Section 4 (Disclosure of Your Information) above.

Mizkan does not sell personal information or “share” it as defined in CCPA.

Your Rights and Choices

The CCPA provides consumers (California residents) with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Right to Know and Data Portability

You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months (the “right to know”). Once we receive your request and confirm your identity, we will disclose to you:

• The categories of personal information we collected about you.
• The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
• Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
• The categories of third parties to whom we disclose that personal information.
• The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you.

Right to Delete

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions (the “right to delete”). Once we receive your request and confirm your identity, we will review your request to see if an exception allowing us to retain the information applies. We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) to:

1. Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a product or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, fulfill the terms of a written warranty or product recall conducted in accordance with federal law, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
2. Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
3. Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
4. Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
5. Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 seq.).
6. Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
7. Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
8. Comply with a legal obligation.
9. Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

We will delete or deidentify personal information not subject to one of these exceptions from our records and will direct our service providers to take similar action.

Exercising Your Rights to Know or Delete

To exercise your rights to know or delete described above, please contact us using the information set forth in Section 9 (Contact Information) above.

Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a request to know or delete related to your personal information.

You may only submit a request to know twice within a 12-month period. Your request to know or delete must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative; and
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.

You do not need to create an account with us to submit a request to know or delete.

We will only use personal information provided in the request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make it.

Response Timing and Format

We will confirm receipt of your request within ten (10) business days. If you do not receive confirmation within the 10-day timeframe, please contact privacy@mizkan.com.

We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of our verification of the request.  If we require more time (up to another 45 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.  We will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option.

Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding our receipt of your request. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Personal Information Sales Opt-Out and Opt-In Rights

We do not sell or “share” personal information, within the meaning of CCPA.  Therefore, we do not provide a mechanism to opt-out of or opt-in to personal information sales.

Non-Discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

• Deny you goods or services.
• Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
• Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

However, we may offer you certain financial incentives permitted by the CCPA that can result in different prices, rates, or quality levels. Any CCPA-permitted financial incentive we offer will reasonably relate to your personal information’s value and contain written terms that describe the program’s material aspects. Participation in a financial incentive program requires your prior opt-in consent, which you may revoke at any time.

Other California Privacy Rights

California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Website that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please contact us using the information specified in Section 9 (Contact Information) above.