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April 22, 2006
How Do French Chefs Protect their Recipes?
Eric von Hippel of MIT Sloan School of Management presented this morning at the Yale A2K conference on the cultural norms of Michelin-starred French chefs in terms of how they protect ownership of their recipes.
Novel recipes are important to success. When asked about the importance placed on original recipes by their restaurant customers, the average importance ranking was 4.42 out of 5.
Chefs can copyright the graphics and text presentation of a recipe - but not the recipe itself. However, they can protect certain trade secrets, someone's famous "secret sauce."
They explored the use of social norms by chefs to protect their innovations. Social norms develop a set of accepted behaviors, and if you deviate you get punished severely by the community. Rules based on the premise of "Thou shalt not."
von Hippel and his research partner sampled 500 michelin starred chefs, conducting in-person interviews, plus 150 responses by survey.
Accomplished chefs expect other chefs will not copies their recipes exactly. If they do, "we don't talk to them anymore; we're furious; we never communicate with them again." Chefs expect others to whom they reveal info will not pass that info onward without permission. "If I give information to another chef I trust him not to pass it on. I do not have to say this." And they expect others will also acknowledge them as a source. If not, their wrath will be public:
"Sir: your presentation [of my recipe] has revealed a rare ingratitude."
Chefs frequently get requests from their peers for recipes. Around 61% said they get such requests one to five times a year
Chefs are significantly more likely to provide info to chefs they think will adhere to recipe norms. Meanwhile, copying without permission can involve both in terms of ingredients and presentation. Chef Robin in Sydney stole a NYC chef's presentation of using test tubes to serve food. (The picture looked like a custard dessert.) He defended his actions but was ostracized from the community.
"Of course people are going to imitate and evolve what they see." - said Chef Robin, who stole presentation of recipe, in his own defense on eGullet.com.
Responses were harsh : "The 'evolution' part may be where you are coming short...." "New York is watching you."
von Hippel concluded by joking, "He has since been executed." -andy
Posted by acarvin at April 22, 2006 10:51 AM
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