Disclaimer

1. General

The website at thesourdoughhub.co.uk and the printed and digital materials we produce (including the booklet that ships with our kits, the recipes published on our journal, and any newsletters we send) are provided in good faith for the personal, non-commercial use of our customers and readers. The information is intended to be useful, accurate, and reliable, but it is offered on an "as is" basis without warranties of any kind beyond those that cannot lawfully be excluded.

2. Allergens and food safety

Our kits are produced in a small unit in Frome, Somerset, that handles wheat, gluten, and rye. Customers with coeliac disease, wheat or gluten allergy, or non-coeliac gluten sensitivity should not use our kits. We do not currently produce any gluten-free products.

Our packing facility is not certified nut-free. We take care to avoid cross-contamination but we cannot guarantee a nut-free product. Customers with severe nut allergies should consider this carefully before ordering.

The live sourdough culture in our kit is a natural fermentation product containing wild yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. It is safe and stable when handled correctly. If you observe pink, orange or fuzzy mould on a starter you have raised at home, the starter should be discarded; refer to our troubleshooting guides on the journal, or contact us.

Recipes on our journal are tested, but the appearance, taste and food safety of the bread you produce will depend on factors we cannot control: the freshness of your ingredients, the cleanliness of your equipment, the temperature of your kitchen, and your own technique. Please use ordinary kitchen judgement: if something smells wrong, looks wrong, or tastes wrong, do not eat it.

3. Nutrition and health information

Where we discuss nutrition, fermentation, or any aspect of the science of bread, we make every effort to be accurate and to cite reputable sources. However:

• We are not a medical, nutritional, or clinical service.
• The information we publish is not personalised to your medical history, diet, or circumstances.
• You should not act on the information we publish in place of advice from a qualified medical or nutritional professional.
• If you have a medical condition or are pregnant, please consult your GP or a registered dietitian before making changes to your diet.

4. The live starter

The starter culture in our kit is a living organism. It arrives in a dormant state and can be reliably reactivated by following the instructions in the kit booklet. If the starter does not show activity within ten days of you following the instructions correctly, please contact us — we will help you troubleshoot, and if necessary replace the starter free of charge.

The starter is for personal home use. It is not licensed for commercial baking, food service, or wholesale resale. If you are interested in using a starter culture commercially, please contact us; we may be able to help, separately.

5. Equipment safety

The dough scoring lame in our kit contains a sharp, replaceable razor blade. Keep it out of reach of children. Replace the blade with care, following the printed instructions. We are not liable for misuse of any tool in the kit beyond what we would owe under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 for a defective product.

The stoneware crock is dishwasher-safe but not designed for direct heat. Do not use it in a conventional oven, on a hob, or under a grill. Do not use it for hot liquids beyond ordinary baking warmth.

6. Linked third-party content

Our website occasionally links to third-party websites, articles, products, and services. These links are provided for the reader's convenience and do not constitute an endorsement of the linked content. We have no control over the content, accuracy, security, or availability of third-party sites and we accept no responsibility for them.

7. Personal experiences and reviews

Customer reviews, comments, and stories on our website represent the experience of an individual customer at a particular moment in time. They are not a guarantee that you will have the same experience. We moderate reviews only to remove abusive or fraudulent content; we do not edit or rewrite them.

8. Photographs

Our website features photographs of finished bread, the kit, and related ingredients. These are representative. Variation in your own kitchen — in oven temperature, flour batch, hydration level, ambient humidity — will produce a different-looking loaf. The bread will still be excellent. It will just be yours.

9. Pricing and availability

We try to keep our prices and stock information correct at all times. From time to time an error may slip through; where it does, we will contact you and either refund or fulfil the order at the corrected price (your choice). Stock availability is shown in real time but cannot be perfectly accurate — if your order arrives at the same instant as another customer's and we run out, we will refund the difference and dispatch what we can.

10. Limitation of liability

The full position on our liability is set out in our Terms & Conditions, section 10. In short: we accept liability for what the law requires us to accept liability for, and our liability for everything else is limited to what you paid for the order plus directly foreseeable consequences of our breach.

11. Updates

This disclaimer is reviewed annually and updated when material changes occur in our kit, our recipes, or the law that applies to us. The most recent review date is shown at the top.

12. Contact

If anything in this disclaimer is unclear, or you would like specific advice about a particular concern, please email hello@thesourdoughhub.co.uk. We will reply within one working day.