Acceptable Use Policy

Acceptable Use Policy

Effective Date: February 10, 2026 • Last Updated: September 30, 2026

About This Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") defines prohibited and restricted uses of the Foodashi ("Foodashi") API, website, and related services (collectively, the "Services"). This AUP is incorporated by reference into the Terms of Service and the API License Agreement.

Almost any kind of app can be built on Foodashi. This policy lists the few things that are not allowed, and the higher-risk uses that need more care than the standard safeguards.

Violation of this AUP may result in suspension or termination of your account.

1. Prohibited Uses: Health & Safety

You must NOT use the Foodashi API as the sole or primary source for any of the following without review by a suitably qualified professional:

  • Allergen guidance: Using API allergen indicators as the definitive allergen source for food products, menus, or food labels without independent verification by a food safety professional.
  • Medical dietary management: Providing dietary plans, meal recommendations, or nutritional guidance for medical conditions (diabetes, celiac disease, phenylketonuria, kidney disease, eating disorders, food allergies, anaphylaxis management, etc.) without oversight from a licensed healthcare provider.
  • Infant or child nutrition: Formulating infant formula, baby food, or child nutrition plans based solely on API data without verification by a paediatric nutritionist or healthcare provider.
  • Clinical nutrition: Using API outputs to inform clinical, hospital, or institutional meal planning without review by a registered dietitian or equivalent licensed professional.
  • Food labeling compliance: Using API data as the sole basis for mandatory food information labels (nutrition facts panels, allergen declarations, ingredient lists) required by law without independent laboratory analysis or professional food science verification.
  • Food safety decisions: Relying on API cooking temperatures, times, or food handling instructions as the sole guide for food safety in commercial food production, catering, or food service operations.

2. Prohibited Uses: Platform Abuse

You must NOT:

  • Scraping & bulk extraction: Systematically download, crawl, enumerate, scrape, or otherwise extract the Foodashi catalogue in whole or in substantial part beyond what your app genuinely needs to serve its own users. Mirroring the catalogue, sweeping recipe IDs, or paginating through the whole dataset is prohibited even if it fits within your quota. (Caching the specific data your app actually uses is allowed, see Section 7.)
  • Redistribution: Republish, redistribute, syndicate, sell, or sublicense the data or any substantial portion of the catalogue as data to anyone other than your own app's end users, or use the data to build, supply, or train a dataset, API, or AI model that offers Foodashi Data, or a substitute for it, to others.
  • Bypassing limits: Use multiple accounts, API keys, IP addresses, or other techniques to circumvent rate limits, request quotas, or tier restrictions.
  • Automated abuse: Send excessive, rapid, or automated requests designed to stress-test, overload, or degrade the performance of the Services.
  • Key sharing: Share, sell, or distribute API keys to third parties, or embed keys in publicly accessible client-side code.
  • Security testing: Perform penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, or security assessments against the API or its infrastructure without prior written authorisation from Foodashi.
  • Interference: Attempt to interfere with, disrupt, or compromise the integrity of the Services, its infrastructure, or other users' access.
  • Reverse engineering: Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code, algorithms, data structures, or architecture of the API or any related software, except to the extent expressly permitted by applicable law (including EU Directive 2009/24/EC, which permits decompilation solely for interoperability purposes).

3. Prohibited Uses: Content & Legal

You must NOT use the Services to:

  • Generate, distribute, or promote content that is illegal, fraudulent, defamatory, harassing, threatening, or that incites violence or hatred.
  • Represent AI-generated content as human-authored, professionally tested, or editorially reviewed when it has not actually been reviewed.
  • Violate any applicable law, regulation, or third-party right, including intellectual property rights, privacy rights, and consumer protection laws.
  • Create misleading health claims, false nutritional advertising, or deceptive food marketing materials.
  • Use API data to generate content intended to deceive, manipulate, or defraud consumers about the nature, quality, safety, or nutritional value of food products.
  • Process, transmit, or store personal data of third parties through the API in violation of applicable data protection laws (GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, UK DPA 2018, etc.).

4. Everyday Apps and Higher-Risk Uses

Most products only need the safeguards in Section 3 of the API License Agreement: clear AI disclosure, nutrition shown as estimates, allergens shown as indicative, no medical or allergy-safety claims, and a way for users to report errors.

  • Consumer recipe, meal-planning, cooking, and grocery apps and websites: allowed, and recipes may be shown automatically without a human reviewing each one, provided the safeguards above are in place.
  • Commercial food service (restaurants, catering): All recipes and allergen information must be reviewed by a qualified chef or food safety professional before use in production. You must implement your own allergen tracking and cross-contamination prevention systems.
  • Printed or editorial publications: If you publish recipes in a cookbook, magazine, or editorial article that presents them as tested or editorially reviewed, a person must test or review them first. This does not apply to apps and websites that show recipes on demand with AI disclosure in place.
  • Dietary and wellness applications: You must include prominent disclaimers that the app is not a substitute for professional medical or dietary advice. Users should be directed to consult healthcare providers for personalised dietary needs.
  • Educational or institutional use: Nutritional data used in educational settings must be presented as estimates only, with appropriate academic disclaimers.

5. AI Transparency Requirements

Under the EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689), AI-generated content must be marked in a machine-readable way, and other laws may require more. You must:

  • Keep the machine-readable AI markers in API responses and image files in place when you pass content on.
  • Make it clear to your end users that recipes and recipe images are AI-generated. A label or a notice in your app is enough.
  • Not represent AI-generated content as human-authored unless a person has actually reviewed or edited it and takes responsibility for it.
  • Cooperate with reasonable requests from Foodashi or from a regulator about how you disclose AI-generated content.

6. Fair Use & Commercial Use

The Hobby (free) tier is intended for personal projects, testing, and evaluation only. Commercial use of the Hobby tier is prohibited. Commercial use is defined as any use that directly or indirectly generates revenue, including but not limited to: paid applications, ad-supported content, subscription services, or commercial food operations.

Commercial use requires an Indie, Pro, or Enterprise plan. If Foodashi determines that you are using the Hobby tier for commercial purposes, we may suspend your access until you upgrade to an appropriate paid plan.

7. Data Use, Caching, and Anti-Extraction

In short: you may cache and store the specific recipe, ingredient, nutrition, and image data ("Foodashi Data") that your app fetches and uses, in your own database. Cached recipe data may be kept for up to 30 days; after that, your app must fetch it again before showing it, so corrections, including allergen corrections, reach your users (Section 15 of the API License Agreement). The Hobby plan requires a visible "Powered by Foodashi" credit linking to foodashi.com; paid plans need no Foodashi branding. The third-party data credits in Section 6 of the API License Agreement apply on every plan.

You may not systematically extract the catalogue in whole or in substantial part beyond what your app genuinely needs to serve its own users (no mirroring, no sweeping recipe IDs, no paginating through the whole dataset, even within quota), and you may not republish, redistribute, syndicate, sell, or sublicense the data as data to anyone other than your own app's end users, or use it to build, supply, or train a dataset, API, or AI model that offers Foodashi Data, or a substitute for it, to others.

The full terms are in Section 15 (Data Use, Caching, and Anti-Extraction) of the API License Agreement, which controls if there is any conflict.

8. Reporting Violations

If you become aware of any use of the Foodashi API that violates this Acceptable Use Policy, please report it to admin@foodashi.com.

Reports should include: the nature of the violation, evidence or URLs if available, and the date observed. All reports will be reviewed and investigated. Foodashi may take action at its sole discretion, including suspension or termination of the reported account.

9. Enforcement

Foodashi reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate action against any violation of this AUP, including but not limited to:

  • Issuing a warning and requesting corrective action.
  • Temporarily suspending API access pending investigation.
  • Permanently terminating your account and revoking all API keys.
  • Reporting illegal activity to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.
  • Pursuing legal remedies including injunctive relief and damages.

Where a violation puts the Services, other users, or the public at risk, we may act without prior notice. Accounts terminated for serious or repeated AUP violations are not eligible for refunds, without prejudice to any statutory consumer rights.

10. Changes to This Policy

Foodashi may update this Acceptable Use Policy. Material changes will be communicated via email or console notification at least 30 days before they take effect. Continued use of the Services after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

For questions about this policy, contact admin@foodashi.com.