Privacy
What we collect, and what we do not
Short version: analytics if you agree to it, your email address if you hand it over, and nothing else. We do not sell anything to anyone.
Last updated 7 September 2026. Crust Bench is run by Simon Bell as a sole trader. Questions, or a request to see or delete what we hold: hello@crustbench.com.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics 4 to see which pages people read and which sellers they click through to. It sets cookies, so it does not run until you accept the banner. Decline and no analytics cookie is written and the site works identically. We record page views, referrer, approximate location from a truncated IP, device and browser, and which listing a click came from. We do not collect names, addresses or anything that identifies you personally, and we have IP anonymisation on.
We also use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts visits without cookies and without tracking anyone across sites. That runs whatever you choose on the banner, because it collects nothing that identifies you.
Links to sellers
Every product name and buy button links to the seller’s own page and carries a tag saying the visit came from Crust Bench, which listing it was, and which table. The seller sees that a Crust Bench reader arrived. It says nothing about you as a person — not your name, not your email, not your address.
Once you land on their site you are on their terms, not ours, and what they collect is between you and them.
Email
If you subscribe we store your email address and nothing else. The lawful basis is your consent, given by submitting the form. We use it to send the newsletter described on the form and for nothing else — no third-party mailings, no selling, no sharing. Every email carries a one-click unsubscribe, and unsubscribing deletes you from the list.
The list is held by Kit, our email provider, who process it on our behalf. If we ever change provider we will say so here.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you can ask us what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, withdraw consent at any time, or object to how we use it. Email hello@crustbench.com and we will action it within a month, usually the same week.
If you think we have handled your data badly you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk. We would rather you told us first so we can fix it.
Cookies, in full
That is the complete list. There are no advertising cookies, no social media pixels, no session replay and no fingerprinting. Videos are the one thing that can add to it, and only if you ask. The how-to videos on our recipes page are not normal YouTube embeds: no video, thumbnail or script is requested from Google when the page loads, so nothing is set and Google is not told you were here. If you press play on one, you are choosing at that moment to load it from YouTube, which will set its own cookies under its own policy, exactly as if you had opened the video in a new tab. We use the no-cookie player, we earn nothing from any of them, and if you never press play, the list above stays complete. To change your mind, clear this site’s data in your browser and the banner will ask again.
Money. No link on this site is paid or affiliate today. If that changes, the row will carry a paid link label and the About page will name the brands involved. A commercial arrangement never changes a position in a table, and it never gives anyone access to your data.