Root

Terms of use

Last updated: 3 November 2026

These terms apply to rootfood.app and the Root app for iPhone (together, "Root"), run by SPR Labs Ltd, trading as Root (rootfood.app) ("we", "us"). Contact: hello@rootfood.app. By using Root you agree to them. Sections 1 to 6 apply to everyone; sections 7 and 8 apply to producers and to anyone who pays us.

Company number: 16814378

Registered office: 3 Winkford Grange, Church Lane, Godalming, Surrey, GU8 5PR, United Kingdom

1. What Root is

Root is a free map of farms, farm shops, milk vending machines, farm-gate stalls, honesty boxes and markets. You can browse it without an account. We don't sell food and aren't part of any sale between you and a producer: what you buy, and its quality and safety, is between you and them.

2. Listings and accuracy

Listings come from open data (including OpenStreetMap, under the Open Database Licence), from producers and from users' corrections. Where we don't know something, we show it as unknown rather than guess. Opening hours, stock and access change, so check with the business before a long trip. Producers are responsible for meeting the rules that apply to what they sell, including food hygiene, labelling and raw milk rules.

3. Using Root fairly

You must not:

  • post anything illegal, or anything that breaks section 4;
  • send false corrections, trip reports, claims or reports;
  • pretend to be someone else, or claim a business you don't run;
  • scrape Root in a way that harms the service or other people, or get round rate limits or spam checks. Our open data and API have their own terms on Data;
  • try to break into, overload or disrupt Root.

4. Content you post

"Content" means anything you send or upload: corrections, trip reports, photos, event details, listing details, replies and, later, reviews. You are responsible for it. It must be accurate, based on your own knowledge, and yours to share. It must not be illegal, defamatory, hateful, threatening, sexually explicit, spam, advertising (outside Sponsored placements), or include other people's personal data without a lawful reason. Reviews must also follow the reviews policy.

You keep ownership of your content. You give us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to host, copy, adapt (for example resize photos or translate text), publish and share it as part of Root, in our newsletter and in our open data and API, for as long as it is on Root and for a reasonable time after to clear copies. Corrections we accept become part of the listing and may be published under the Open Database Licence. If you upload a photo, you confirm you took it or have permission to use it, and that anyone identifiable in it agreed.

5. How we moderate

We may review content before or after it appears. We can refuse, remove, hide in some countries, or stop showing content in search and the Sponsored row, and we can suspend or close an account, when content or behaviour breaks the law or these terms. A person makes these decisions; we do not use automated moderation, and if that changes we will update this section. When we act, we tell the person affected why (a statement of reasons) and how to appeal. We act in a diligent, objective and proportionate way, with regard to everyone's rights, including freedom of expression.

If someone repeatedly posts clearly illegal content or repeatedly sends clearly unfounded reports, we first warn them, then suspend that account or stop handling their reports for a reasonable time. Anyone can report content they think is illegal using the report form. Appeals and out-of-court dispute settlement are explained on Digital Services Act information.

6. Accounts

You need an account only to manage a listing or pay for something. You must be 16 or over. Keep your sign-in secure and tell us if you think someone else has used it. You can close your account by emailing us. We will close it and delete your data as our privacy notice describes.

7. Producers and listings

If you claim or manage a listing, you also agree that:

  • you run the business or are authorised to act for it, and you will prove this if asked;
  • the listing is a farm, farm shop, milk vending machine, farm-gate stall, honesty box, market or shop selling food from local farms. Root is not a general shop or restaurant directory;
  • what you publish (hours, products, prices, photos, events) is accurate and kept up to date, and you will fix it when told it is wrong;
  • you follow the law that applies to what you sell and where, including food hygiene registration, labelling, allergen and raw drinking milk rules, and consumer law. You offer only products and services that comply with the law;
  • you don't use Root to collect payments or personal data from shoppers, except through features we provide for that.

Trader details. Before Root Pro or a Sponsored placement starts, you must give us your business's legal name, address, email, phone number, trade register name and number (if registered), and VAT number (if registered), a copy of identification if we ask, and confirm that you only offer products that comply with the law. You confirm these details are complete and correct and will update them when they change. We check them with reasonable effort, can suspend paid features until they are complete, and show them on your place page so shoppers know who they are dealing with. This is required by the EU Digital Services Act (Article 30) where it applies to us, and we apply it to every paying producer.

We may change, merge or remove a listing that is wrong, closed, a duplicate or outside the kinds of places Root lists. A claimed listing does not belong to you: we may hand it to someone who shows they run the business, after telling you.

  • Prices, what each plan includes and the billing period are shown before you pay. Prices include VAT where it applies, or say if they don't.
  • Subscriptions renew automatically until you cancel. Cancelling stops the next renewal; you keep access until the end of the period you paid for. In the app you cancel through your Apple account, and Apple's terms apply to the payment. On the web you cancel from your account or by emailing us, and Stripe takes the payment.
  • If you are a consumer, you can cancel a web purchase within 14 days for a full refund. If you ask us to start straight away and then cancel within those 14 days, we may keep a proportionate amount for the time used. Purchases in the app follow Apple's refund process.
  • Root Pro and Sponsored placements are sold to producers acting for their business, so the 14-day consumer right does not apply to them. You can still cancel at any time to stop the next renewal.
  • Sponsored placements are always labelled "Sponsored", shown in a separate row and targeted only by county. Paying never changes organic results, other listings, corrections or reviews. The full rules are in the advertising policy. We may refuse or remove a placement that breaks them; if we remove one for a reason that is not your fault, we refund the unused part.

9. Our rights

We own or license the Root name, logo, design and software. Open data stays under its own licence, as shown on Data and licences. Don't suggest that Root or a listed business endorses you without permission.

10. Our responsibility to you

We provide Root with reasonable care and skill, but we can't promise it will always be available or error-free. We are responsible for loss that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care. We are not responsible for loss that was not foreseeable, for what producers sell or do, or for business losses if you use Root for business, except as set out below.

For producers and other business users, our total liability in any 12 months is limited to the amount you paid us in that period, or £100 if more.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or anything else that law does not allow us to limit, and nothing takes away your statutory rights as a consumer.

11. Changes and ending

We may change Root and these terms, for example for new features or new laws. We will give account holders and paying producers at least 30 days' notice by email of changes that affect them, unless the law or a security risk needs faster change. If you don't accept a change, you can close your account and cancel paid plans before it takes effect. You can stop using Root at any time.

12. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales can hear disputes. If you are a consumer living in Scotland, Northern Ireland or the EU, you also keep the protection of the mandatory consumer law where you live and can bring a claim in your local courts.