HelloFresh has been issued a £140,000 fine by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for sending over 79 million spam emails and one million texts over seven months.

An investigation by the ICO revealed the spam texts and emails from the food delivery company “lacked proper consent”, with some customers not aware they had opted in to receive the marketing messages for up to 24 months after cancelling their subscriptions.

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As a result, 14 direct complaints were received by the regulator, with 8,729 complaints being made to the 7726 spam message reporting service.

Despite there being a reference to receiving emails, the option to opt-in was included in an age confirmation statement which was likely to “unfairly incentivise customers to agree”, according to the ICO.

ICO Head of Investigations, Andy Curry claimed this was a “clear breach of trust”.

He said: “Customers weren’t told exactly what they’d be opting into, nor was it clear how to opt-out.

“From there, they were hit with a barrage of marketing texts they didn’t want or expect, and in some cases, even when they told HelloFresh to stop, the deluge continued.”

However, the company has revealed it has made changes to its email and text marketing policies following the investigation, which began just under two years ago.