Editorial Policy
What we publish, who stands behind it, and what happens when we get something wrong.
Who writes this site
Every article, roundup and guide on Tray & Toast is written by Janet H., the hands-on owner behind Janet Media Group. There are no ghost-written articles here, no machine-generated filler published under a human byline, and no contributor network.
The byline on a page always names the person responsible for it. If that ever changes, the bylines will change with it and this page will say so.
What we claim, and what we do not
The experience behind this site is running a venue and feeding groups most weekends. That is genuine, repeated, high-volume hosting experience and it is what the recommendations rest on.
We do not hold and will never claim culinary certifications, cheesemonger qualifications, sommelier credentials or hospitality degrees. We do not run a product testing lab and we do not say we have tested things we have not. We do not publish awards, press mentions or years-in-business figures, because none are on file.
Our methodology page sets out exactly what evidence product picks are based on.
Independence
This site earns commission through the Amazon Associates Program. The following are firm rules, not aspirations:
- Commission rate never affects ranking. If a cheaper product is the better buy for the reader, it goes first.
- Nobody can pay for a position. We do not accept sponsored placements, paid inclusions or gifted-product-for-review arrangements.
- We point at the better offer, not the better-paying one. Where a retailer we do not earn from is genuinely the better option for the buyer, we say so.
- No manufacturer gets copy approval. Nobody outside this site reads a page before it publishes.
Accuracy and sourcing
- Every statistic carries a source. If a figure cannot be sourced to something we can link to, it does not ship.
- Material and food-safety claims cite an authority. Claims about cutting-board hygiene or tableware materials link to the relevant guidance rather than asserting it.
- Working rules of thumb are labeled as such. Quantities like appetizers per person or board size per guest come from experience. We present them as guidance with the reasoning shown, never as a fabricated study.
- We never invent a citation. No made-up study names, no anonymous “experts say”.
Our scores, and what you will not find here
This site publishes no customer quotes and no star ratings from buyers. We have no first-party feedback we could legitimately show you, and inventing it or borrowing someone else’s would be a serious breach of trust and of FTC rules. A site without that section is the correct outcome, not a gap.
The scores on our product cards are our own editorial ratings against a published rubric, shown on the page. They are never presented as test results, and they never appear in this site’s structured data as a product rating.
Corrections
We will get things wrong. When we do:
- Email janet.hoyo@yahoo.com or use the contact form.
- We verify the claim. If it is right, the page is corrected promptly.
- Corrections that change a recommendation are noted on the page rather than quietly edited, and the last-updated date changes.
- Typos and formatting fixes are made without a note, because annotating them would be noise.
Update cadence
- Product roundups — reviewed on a rolling basis, with priority where a pick is discontinued or superseded.
- Comparisons — reviewed when the underlying product landscape changes.
- Reference guides — reviewed when the advice itself changes, which for quantities and technique is rare.
- Prices — never printed stale. Live price data, where it exists, expires automatically after 48 hours.
Every page shows its published and last-updated dates in the byline, so you can judge for yourself how current it is.
Questions
Anything about this policy: janet.hoyo@yahoo.com.