Privacy policy

Last Updated: October 25, 2021

Central Garden & Pet Company and its affiliated entities (collectively, “Central“, “we“, “us,” “our“) are committed to protecting individual privacy and maintaining the trust of our customers (“Customers“) and visitors to our websites (collectively, “Visitors“). It is important to us that we provide transparency regarding our collection, use, and disclosure of your personal data. This includes information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular individual or household. We refer to this information interchangeably as “Personal Data” or “Personal Information” throughout this policy.

To help us meet our commitment to you, we have created this Privacy Notice (“Privacy Notice“). This Privacy Notice governs data protection matters across our suite of products (collectively, the “Central Products” or “Products“), including data provided by Visitors to the websites we control and that link to this Privacy Notice (“Central Sites“). This Privacy Notice, along with our Terms of Use, form an integral and binding part of our relationship with you.

1.  What Does This Privacy Notice Apply to?

This Privacy Notice describes how we use, share, and protect the Personal Data of Customers and Visitors who visit the Central Sites. It also describes the rights and choices regarding use, access to, and correction of Personal Data available.

2.  What Information Do We Collect and Why?

We may collect Personal Data in various ways, such as when you: enter into a transaction or contractual arrangement with us; participate in our programs or activities; provide data at industry events and trade shows; visit our facilities or we visit you at your offices; contact our customer service; or in connection with your inquiries and communications with us. We may also collect or purchase Personal Data from other sources, including Customers, data companies, publicly-accessible databases, and joint marketing partners.

We have created the following table to help you understand the categories of Personal Data that we are responsible for and process as a data controller:

Categories of Data Subjects:	Categories of Personal Data:	Why We Collect It – Our Purposes and Legal Bases
Customers	Contact Informationsuch as email address, phone number, addressPersonal Identifierssuch as first and last nameMarketing Preferences and Customer Service Interactionssuch as marketing preferences; responses to voluntary surveysOperational Datasuch as transactions, sales, purchases, vendor information, credentials to online services and platforms, and electronic content produced by individuals using company systems	Communicate with Customers for the purpose of our contractual relationships or for our legitimate interests.Operate our business for the purpose of our contractual relationships or for our legitimate interests.Provide Products and information of interest to you with your consent, where applicable, or where we have a legitimate interest.Engage with you as a business relation with your consent when we have a contractual relationship or for our legitimate interests.Manage our business to comply with our legal obligations, or when we have a legitimate interest.
Prospective Customers	Contact Informationsuch as email address, phone number, addressPersonal Identifierssuch as first and last nameMarketing Preferences and Customer Service Interactionssuch as marketing preferences; responses to voluntary surveys	For marketing purposes, such as re-engaging with prospective Customers who have expressed an interest in our products.Responding to your inquiries, for example, when you send us questions, suggestions, compliments or complaints, or when you request further information about our ProductsProvide you with our newsletter and/or other marketing materials and facilitate social sharing with your consent, where applicable, or where we have a legitimate interest.
Vendors	Contact Informationsuch as email address, phone number, addressPersonal Identifierssuch as first and last nameEmployment Informationsuch as company and job title	Communicate with Vendors for the purpose of our contractual relationships or for our legitimate interests.Operate our business for the purpose of our contractual relationships or for our legitimate interests.Manage our business to comply with our legal obligations, or when we have a legitimate interest.

A Quick Note on Tracking Data

We use cookies, third-party analytics, and other tracking mechanisms to track Visitors’ to the Central Sites. These tracking mechanisms may automatically collect information about your visits to the Central Sites. You can read more about our Cookie Policy here.

One of the third-party services that we use to track your activity and understand your behavior on our Platforms is Google Analytics. Information that we collect may be combined with other information about you using Google Analytics or other services. We use these technologies, alone or in combination, to understand user behavior (by tracking unique user IDs), and to target and measure the effectiveness of advertisements, help diagnose problems, recognize repeat Visitors, and facilitate your access to, and use of, the services offered on our Platforms.

You can opt out of receiving interest-based Google ads or customize the ads Google shows you through your Google settings. If you do not want Google Analytics to collect and use information about your use of our Platforms, then you can adjust your settings in your web browser.

3.  What Are Our Legal Bases for Processing Personal Data?

We collect and process Personal Data about you only where we have a legal basis for doing so. Our legal bases for processing Personal Data are dependent on the purpose and context of the processing activity.

Our legal bases include:

a.  Legitimate Interests (Customer Data)

We process Customer Data to further our own legitimate interests, which may include:

1. providing our Customers with our Products;
2. continuously improving, customizing, and personalizing our Products;
3. taking measures to protect against fraud, spam, and abuse; and/or
4. aggregating and/or anonymizing Customer Data, so that they will no longer be considered Personal Data. We do so to generate other data for our use, which we may use and disclose for any purpose. We will engage in this activity because we have a legitimate interest.

b.  Consent (Customer Data)

We obtain consent to send marketing communications to our potential Customers and leads. Where you have provided your consent to receive marketing communications from us, you can withdraw your consent at any time by clicking on an unsubscribe link in each marketing communication or changing settings in your account, but doing so will not affect the processing that has already taken place.

c.  Contractual Necessity

We process Customer Data based on contractual necessity, which may include providing the Products to our Customers.

d.  Legal Obligation

Central may be required under EU, EU member state or other applicable law to obtain and store certain Personal Data. For example, Central may be required to obtain and store data relating to Customers for reporting purposes.

4.  How Do We Use Personal Data?

We may use Personal Data for the following purposes:

1. To provide you with the Products and services you request from us. This includes storing and retrieving Personal Data as needed by our Customers, processing transactions with Customers, communicating with our Customers, and for any other purposes that our Customers request;
2. If you have consented to Central performing a background check in the employment process, we may also use your government identification number, and/or any other required identifier. The results of such background check will only be used for the purposes you consented to and will be kept strictly confidential. Please note that you are under no obligation to provide us with your government identification number (this is entirely optional) but failing to do so may hinder your ability to be employed by Central. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Privacy Notice, in the event you choose to provide your government identification number, we will not use or disclose it except as necessary for the purpose of running a background check;
3. To enforce our Terms of Use and any other agreements;
4. As otherwise required or permitted by law;
5. To improve, modify, and measure the performance of our Platforms.

5.  How Do We Disclose Personal Data?

We will not disclose any Personal Data we collect from you to any third parties except as indicated below:

1. Our Affiliates. We may disclose Personal Data to any of our subsidiaries and/or affiliates within the Central corporate group.
2. Business Partners. We may partner with select retailers and other companies at various times to provide expanded services to our Site visitors. As part of such a relationship, we may share with these companies the use of certain interactive Site functions. Information provided by our Site visitors through the use of such interactive functions may be available to both us and our partners.
3. Service Providers. We may disclose Personal Data to our service providers who perform certain services necessary to run our business (for example, data hosting and development, data analysis, customer service, auditing and other services), provided that these service providers have entered into legally binding agreements with us to protect the Personal Data shared, limit their use of the Personal Data, and assist us with our compliance requirements.
4. Legal Request. We may disclose Personal Data to comply with applicable law and our regulatory monitoring and reporting obligations (which may include laws outside your country of residence), to respond to requests from public and government authorities (which may include authorities outside your country of residence), to cooperate with law enforcement, or for other legal reasons.
5. Business Transfer. We may disclose Personal Data to a buyer or successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Central’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, receivership, or similar proceeding in which Personal Data held by Central are among the assets to be transferred.
6. Enforcement of Our or Others’ Rights. We may disclose Personal Data to the extent they are necessary to enforce or protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or others, including enforcing our Terms of Use and any other agreements (such as for billing and collection purposes and fraud prevention).

6.  Children

We do not knowingly collect Personal Data from children under the age of sixteen (16) without authorization by a holder of parental responsibility. If you believe that we may have collected Personal Data from or about a child under the age of sixteen (16) without such authorization, please contact us here.

7.  How Do We Protect Your Personal Data?

At Central we take the protection of your Personal Data seriously. We make every reasonable effort to prevent unauthorized use, disclosure, loss, or theft of your Personal Data. Central employees who have access to your Personal Data are made aware of the importance of keeping it confidential. Where we collect your payment card information, we will comply with all applicable Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS).

When we rely on service providers that may require access to your Personal Information, we require them to have adequate privacy and security standards. We use contracts and other legally binding measures with our service providers to maintain the confidentiality and security of your Personal Data, and to prevent such information from being used for any other purpose.

However, no data security measures can guarantee complete security; we also depend on you to take common sense steps to ensure your Personal Information remains secure.

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

8.  Information for California Consumers

The information and rights in this section apply specifically to California residents.

Central does not sell, trade, or rent out our Visitor’s Personal Information for compensation, nor have we done so in the preceding twelve months.

California residents are entitled to contact us to request information about whether we have disclosed Personal Information to third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. Currently Central does not disclose Personal Information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. Thus, upon receipt of such a request by a California consumer, and as required by California state law, we will either (1) respond with a confirmation that we have not disclosed any Personal Information to third parties in the previous calendar year, or (2) if our practices have changed, we will provide the categories of Personal Information that has been shared in the past 12 months and categories of third parties to whom such Personal Information was disclosed, whichever is relevant.

California consumers have the right to:

• Request disclosure of the categories and specific pieces of Personal Information that Central has collected about you;
• Request disclosure of the categories of third-party sources, if any, from which Central has collected Personal Information about you;
• Disclosure of the business or commercial purpose(s) for which your Personal Information has been collected by Central;
• Receive a list of the categories of third parties with whom Central has shared your Personal Information;
• Request that Central delete any Personal Information that it has collected from you (subject to exceptions); and
• Not be discriminated against by Central (e.g. charged different rates, provided different levels of service, denied goods or services, or suggested any of the preceding) for exercising any of the individual rights granted above.

To exercise any of your rights as a California consumer, you can submit a request here.

Before complying with your request, we will need to verify that it is you that is making the request. To accomplish this, you may be requested to (1) confirm specific Personal Information that we already know about you; and/or (2) provide us with appropriate identification and documentation as we request. California consumers are limited to two requests for Personal Information per twelve-month period.

Only you or an authorized agent may make a verifiable data subject request related to your Personal Data.

The verifiable data subject request must provide sufficient information and documentation to allow us to verify that you (or an authorized agent) are the person about whom we collected Personal Data.

We will not provide you with Personal Data if we cannot verify your identity and/or authority to make the data subject request and confirm the Personal Data belongs to you or the represented individual. We use Personal Data provided in a verifiable data subject request solely to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

We will acknowledge receipt of your data request within 10 days. We will respond to a verifiable data subject request within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period. If you have an account with us, we will deliver our response to the email address for that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our response by US mail or electronically at the email address in your request, at your option. All disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding the verifiable employee request’s receipt. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable data subject 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.

9.  Retaining Your Personal Data

We retain Personal Data for as long as needed or permitted in light of the purpose(s) for which they were obtained and consistent with applicable law. The criteria used to determine our retention periods include:

• The length of time we have an ongoing relationship with you and provide the Products to you;
• Whether there is a legal obligation to which we are subject (for example, certain laws require us to keep records of your tran