Ideas

Tricky one. There are millions of good quality recipes on the web. Nearly all are free.

That's where you are wrong. I'm a professional cook. When chefs go and write next month menu, they only rely on cooking books written by top chefs. A top chef always studies and buys books to do so. There is no online recipe index meeting the quality o the books they buy for studying.

On the Internet top chefs sometimes give away a recipe or two on a specific website. You have to search alot to find enough as a basis on which people can study. Most recipes you find on the internet are made by amateur cooks, I'd say 98% or more.

What is quality? This is not so easy. For me it is necessary to have professional and respected chefs write the recipes. They had the means, public criticism and time to perfection whatever they invented. If you go to a class restaurant library, you will most likely only find books written by respected chefs. (Or in the case of foreign kitchens, written by local people who went to the specific country.)
Who is a professional and respected chef then? Well, there’s many ways to find out and to appoint someone. For instance there are many restaurant guides such as the European Michelin Guide or America’s Mobil Travel Guide (stars 4 to 6). The chef working in such a restaurant has proven himself worthy. There are also other ways such as lifestyle magazines and the advice of respected local food critics.

What sells? There are different costumers in the cooking book scene. My market can be defined as the “upper class” which consists out of professional cooks and chefs and amateur cooks interested in top kitchen. I guess they fill in about 10 to 20% of cooking book sales.

Before I forget. Please mind that I am talking about stars 4 to 6 America's Moble Travel Guide. Before you subjectively go tell people which recipes are quality, consider that your opinion may not be well studied.

Rich2809: can you give me some examples of websites containing "quality" recipes?

Filip.

It's a niche market, but maybe you can make money this way.

What I'm wondering about is this: how will you buy a recipe that you can not see/Taste before? You just go by the reputation of the chef?

Tommy

Hello Tommy, thank for the reply

How do you know if a recipe is good? You’ll have the chef’s reputation. You will also have an image of the recipe (real imago, no food photography). The ingredients will be showed (cannot be copied technique like mappy.com) but not the measurements. The needed kitchen tools will also be mentioned before buying.
Besides that there will also be a rewarding system. The trouble here is that chefs may not be interested in rewarding recipes. They spend most of the time in the kitchen and are probably not so keen on interactivity. Then again rewarding is possible for everyone and it is up to the customer to believe the rewarding system or not.

Eventually people in this niche market will keep buying cooking books without knowing if the recipes inside are good. Cooks can mostly tell by the ingredients and picture if the recipe is OK.
In the end the reputation of the Chef will be the most reasonable proof

When it comes to quality recipes from top chefs there is also always the part of technique. Something valuable to share/sell being learned by working heaps of hours on a recipe.

I believe I can make money with this. There are different costumers in the cooking book scene. My market can be defined as the “upper class” which consists out of professional cooks and chefs and amateur cooks interested in top kitchen. I guess they fill in about 10 to 20% of cooking book sales (at least in Belgium they do).

EXTRA ADVANTAGE

Foreign cooking? If you go to any country you'll see that a huge amount of the cooking books handling foreign culinary arts are written by local people (or immigrants). The knowledge they had to acquire to do this was not easily found. They had to visit the country and talk to
their chef cooks or they had to read local cooking books. While all this time there could have been an easy solution for cooks who want good foreign recipes. I believe that a good recipe from local arts and presently build is best written by chefs running a restaurant in their own country.

EXTRA ADVANTAGE

Recipes will bloom? Once there are many respected chef’s convinced and they start sending recipes it will work out itself. The first delegation of chef’s need to be convinced by the money they will earn. The ones later on will be convinced by the money and because others are doing it.
A lot of top chefs never written a cook book. There are many reasons for this. Our website is much easier than current methods and will convince many chefs to sell recipes, even if they only sell two.

Who benefits and who won’t? The chefs benefit because their recipes can be shown and sold to heaps of people around the globe. Let’s say that a recipe will cost 1 US $ and the chef gets 70% ... you do the counting. Knowing that if they write a book, it will not be everywhere published, the cost would be higher and the chef needs to write a whole book. Chefs, amateurs and cooks also benefit because they don’t need to search hard for new quality recipes anymore. The website company benefits by selling.
The current cooking book publishers won’t benefit and will even lose ground.

Chefs at this stage sometimes hand out free recipes. Although they have many more on which they can make money. This project could even change the atmosphere of free recipes.

Look at iStockphoto, there are also design photos free on the net, but it does have succes! This project won't be so big because only top chefs are allowed but it does have a chance to make a nice amount of money!

I am a cook and entrepreneur. I believe this website can be a success. I’m looking for people with the means to launch this together with me. I have great knowledge of the cooking world and also a lot about the internet.

EXTRA ADVANTAGE

Sorry, for the Caps on "extra advantage" if you are offended.

I think it's a good idea and a good market. People who enjoy cooking will pay for access to good recipes. That's why magazines like Gourmet do well.

My concern would be the volume and frequency of updates. Can you keep the site growing well enough to keep repeat visitors? If you think it will be hard to get high volume of updates, you might consider using that to your advantage by structuring it as a "menu of the month" subscription. Then you only have to come up with six or seven recipes a month that coordinate into a meal. I think a lot of chefs would do it solely for the exposure as long as they and their restaurants get mentioned, but you could easily cut each one in on a slice of the action for a month they were involved in.

I wouldn't suggest to demand regular new recipes from chefs. They have to be free and choose themselves when to post a new one.
The idea is to use this website internationally. In Belgium alone we have more than 60 class restaurants. This means that there'll be dozens actually hundreds of chefs worthy to write and make money through our website.
A chef is also always busy inventing new recipes. Some create a good one each month, others take a year or more, it depends.
So, I estimate that there will surely be more than 10 new recipes each month.

Also mind that I think it is best to sell recipes by the piece. Not to sell monthly subscriptions to everything on the website. You could sell subscriptions with limited acces to recipes i.e. 300 recipes for 120$.
When a recipe is demanded it'll get a hit and the Chef who wrote it gets another amount of money.

To actually have a good database to start with is to contact publishers who have rights to books from chefs from the past who are not alive anymore to copy their recipes.

In the future you could add extra's to the website such as articles about latest developments and so on.

In the US, copyright of recipes is not strict. You can copyright the wording of instructions but not simply a list of ingredients. That means if one person with access to your database does a slight re-wording of the recipes, they can post them on their own site. If you charge per recipe, you might get some pirates (typically posing as fair use advocates) reposting your content for free just because they can. That's why I thought some value-added subscription type service might be a good model.

I like to cook and can easily find and follow good recipes, but what I really look for is a way to tie a whole meal together. Being able to find an appetizer, soup, entree, dessert, etc. that all tie together in a theme is one of the things that sets a real chef apart from a cook who can follow instructions. Letting one chef put together a full menu might be a real selling point and it might help you with your pay-for-access model.

A lot of times I have to look at a recipe and judge both the ingredients and techniques required to determine if it's something that sounds good and is something I think I can pull off. So just speaking for myself, I would be nervous paying a per-recipe fee because I know from experience that I wouldn't end up wanting a lot of the recipes I looked at.

Hi micco, you have a point. I didn't think about pirates that much because of the niche market. But still pirates are there, and they can abuse this project alot. I am going to have to think this over.
But surely somebody can't just take a whole lot of our recipes, give them away and promote this abuse without punishment?

I'm afraid that it's asking too much of a chef to assemble a complete menu. I also don't think other chefs need this. They mostly read recipes, take important parts from it and create something a bit more how they see it. But ofcourse there are also amateur cooks who'd probably like a complete menu. Except that it wasn't my intention to focus on that market.

Filip.

You thought it over quite well.

The remark of Micco, is the reason why I posted my question, about how you're going to 'show' the recipe. You answered that question very well.

What I'm also worried about, is chefs, working together; like I buy recipe x and you buy recipe Y and then we exchange them.

But indeed copyright is impossible, but maybe you can let them ‘sign’ some kind of agreement on how to handle the recipes, like not selling them, trading them, publishing them, etc. Still it’s a weak point in you business idea right now.

Tommy

www.best-chocolate-recipes-online.com/chocolate_recipes.html
http://www.qualityrecipes.com
http://www.deliaonline.com

Plus hundreds more

I love to cook but I am never going to produce restaurant quality food at home.

http://www.manoir.co...em_c1b_ham_salad.jsp

This chef has two Michelin stars and is about to publish 5500 recipes on the web

http://food.oregonstate.edu/recipes/

The thing about top chef's is that they are only famous (really famous) in their own location. I can not think of a famous Dutch, German, Spanish Chef
The ones I know that are French, work on British TV as cookery is huge at the moment in the UK.

One other hitch I can foresee (and I am sorry if you think I am being overly negative) is that Chefs cling to their recipes like life itself. They do not really share them. Or am I wrong?

I think you need a site that perhaps sell top quality kitchen items as well as the recipes. I can see no

Thinkng about this idea. It wolud appear to work as a part work. That is a magasine published monthly and would be called something like 'Great Recipes of The World'

Cheesy name but I think it is a way of earning revenue from the recipes.

Rich

Vanhees, thanks. But, first of all I must say that chefs don't always have the time to play tricks on the net or would ever think of doing this. But I could be wrong ofcourse.
For a chef has to give the right to a publisher for the recipes in the book, he will also have to sign some kind of an agreement here.

Rich2809, thank you.
First I have to say that the websites (except manior (where do you read him releasing all those recipes?)) are not what I mean about quality recipes.
Sure there are quality recipes on the net. But not in a complete library with my kind of basis. Most of all, not written by top chefs! This is a different kind of market. Top chefs don't easily put their work on the net for free. They sometimes give away a few, yes. The rest they put in books to sell. Go to a top restaurant and you'll most likely find books only written by respected chefs. I don't see these on the internet, I only see millions of free recipes claiming to be quality.
Would a chef give away the real secret of a recipe? Yes, I believe so. They write great books explaining everything.
A top chef only famous in his own region? Not in the culinary world. We talked about chefs all over Europe gaining their 2nd Michelin star. Whit our website we can even make chefs more famous. We will ge start looking at different continents. If the ingredients and picture sounds not worthy you just don't buy. But I'm sure there are many great american chefs doing the finest cuisine whom would inspire alot of european chefs. Sometimes this already happens through magazines. Chefs can explore by themselves now, on an easy-to-use handy website.

I still believe in this idea. It may need some changes, things to be thought over, that's why I came to Cambrian House.

Filip, I believe it's a good idea too. I only know a couple of real chefs, but I agree that they seem willing to give away recipes in exchange for money/marketing/exposure. They know as well as anyone who cooks that the recipe itself is not enough to make a great meal so it's not like someone who gets the recipe is going to replace a great chef. A chef who tries to keep recipes secret is kind of like a singer who tries to keep lyrics secret.

That said, there are lots of cookbooks, magazines, and websites in this space. Your plan to get recipes from top chefs is certainly a selling point that will help in the marketing. I think the main thing to flesh out is the presentation and business plan; that is, what format this will take (cookbook-style website, monthly features, etc.) and how people will pay.

http://starchefs.com...tails.php?news_id=38

This may be of interest to you

Rich

http://eclipse.usp.n...edb/search_query.cfm

This is Raymond Blanc recipe site with the 5500. He says it is being updated

OK, Raymond Blanc may be sweating a lot with his recipe flow. But I don't trust the quality.
starchefs.com is a very hopefull and good link. I must thank you Rich2809. We can build on this. So, did I convince you about the difference of recipe in professional athmospheres and those on site like qualityrecipes.com?

Maybe selling a recipe per piece is not such a good idea. What about digitalising cooking books and selling them through the internet? So the whole world can get them. I think this is a great improvement. Everyone will win on this one, also the publishers because they'll still get reveneu. Sales will increase.
*Just thinking forward*-

Hi FilipFransen

No you did not convince me yet. This is mainly because you are a professional and you can see the difference.. I struggle as I have less knowledge than you do.
I do like the basic idea and see some ways to add a little value. You could for instance allow your users to put their favorite recipes from the site into a book.Have it printed (like Blurb.com)
You need to think what else cool kitchen products you can include on this site. Knives, Gadgets stuff for the Christmas market.

Rich

You could even hold real cookery lessons in the famous chef's kitchen via web cam. You could just have web cams set up so that people can watch the chefs preform.

Lets do a really cool kitchen, food website using your experiance in the kitchen.
History of food. History of recipes anything

Rich

Whoops I mean experience

Thank you micco for the supporting feedback and also thanks Rich2809

I also see a selling point with this idea. The recipe is not the only thing that makes a good kitchen indeed. When chefs go to their library studying cooking books they search for combinations of ingredients. They want to find new ways of cooking. Cooking is an art that has alot of different aspects. It is also always on the move. One chef cannot find all techniques and combinations by himself.

The formule of the website is indeed what I have to think of now. I initially thought of selling recipes by the piece. But this is not such a good choice. There should be more marketing aspects, I agree. Including different things that go with professional cooking could also turn out succesfully. I only fear that monthly subscriptions will acquire a very interesting website with alot of costs to keep it that way.

To continue with my idea to sell cooking books, I also meant that instead of just one recipe. Chefs could first write e.g. a dozen following a certain theme. We could display some of them and if you want them all, you'll have to buy the whole package. This is just one idea to overcome some of the problems you guys mentioned before.

Starting a "cool website" is a bit too far from my intentions. Maybe if this idea totally doesn't work out.
blurp.com is very interesting to implement with recipes, only that the market I'm aiming for is not that suitable

Hi FilipFransen

Could you just tell us exactly who your market is. What demographic are you aiming at?

If you are looking for the slightly more mature market you could include other items such as classical music etc.

I think it would be a good exercise if you gave some thought to whom you will be selling too.

Rich

Like I mentioned: Professional cooks and chefs are the market. This could expand to amateur cooks who at this time like to buy books with quality recipes from top cooks. My system is a replacement of professional cooks library. A more efficient worldwide available and cheaper way for studying recipes and techniques. Chefs sharing their knowledge for a price to colleagues who share too and too colleagues who still have alot to learn.
You could include more services such as distribution of quality products and cooking material. This is aimed at a small niche market, but can get really respected and gain market.

I keep wondering what business model would work well here. One thing that occurred to me is that you could use a model kind of like thisisby.us, which is a site that posts essay-type content and the author gets a cut of the ad revenue. Qualified chefs could post recipes (and maybe get some premium services for free). Regular users could subscribe (or view ad-supported content) and the site would share pro-rated revenue with the contributing chefs.

I understand your real target audience is top-level chefs, but I'm just wondering if you can generate useful revenue on that small group of users. It might be better to court them as your elite free members and charge the masses.

I see, this is a good proposal. Maybe it shouldn't be only recipes top Chef's can (have to) submit to be an elite member but also techniques.
It doesn't harm them that much to give away these "secrets", because - as said - it takes more than those to get michelin stars. Discipline amongst others are the key aspects for that.
This idea of building an exclusive studying club for chefs, where chefs will earn revenue by sharing and get free acces to lessons around the world seems really possible. It may also attract alot of curious people who'll need to pay subscription of which the site and contributors get a share. - sounds reasonable micco

There are all ready lots of sites that do it for free.

This is a tough one....Quality is very subjective...What is one person's gourmet food in a fancy whiteclothed restaurant may be may be made indentically in a lunch joint.

Where you may differ is in video presentation of exact preparation.

That is where the difference may lie....How to prepare food and be shown by the chef on how to do it.

An example may be http://www.foodguru.com

I learned how to make an excellent crepes suzette here.

The same type of thing is being done in other target markets. I am an amateur magician. A video of how to do a trick is much better than than a textbook....

If you read the previous conversation you should understand the issue of quality. This is meant for a niche market which you could only know if you were into it.

Videos for showing techniques would cost alot, who's going to shoot all of them..

Great thread, the entire way down I was thinking video. I like your idea, your passion probably comes from your professional desire to learn from the best. However, I think the market is much larger if you focus on amateur cooks. The concept is a social networking website where members share recipes, compete in contests, buy and sell hand crafted cookware. Content may be complimented by weekly chief guests who gladly share a recipe secret (in detail) in exchange for marketing themselves to such a large target audience.

I think the play here is a social networking website, based on user content (profiles, video, recipes, points, etc). In fact, this is worth my posting as an idea next round!

Europe might be a better market - I don't see anyone cooking at home in the US anymore. Yes, they buy cookbooks, magazines, etc., build a beautiful kitchen, then go out eating. Go figure.

If you give us a really good price the Reverse Cookbook might be interested in buying some recipes from you.

http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/p5PQ2DG/

The video is not expensive. A chef in the UK Jamie Oliver tried something with pod cast. Check them out on the apple store

SOmeone mentioned that copy write does not apply to recipes. If this is true then you could just buy a bunch of cook books and publish various recipes on your site from them. I do not know the copy write laws.

Rich, here's the relevant FAQ on copyright of recipes in the US:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

Basically, you can't copyright a list of ingredients. You can copyright some expressive form of instructions. That precludes someone republishing a cookbook verbatim, but it does not preclude reworking or reinterpreting.

That sounds like a cost saver. Can you use peoples names? or does that become copyright?

Maybe think of a widget service! Use the receipt which are already online, show them in a widget and let others vote on it. A little banner in the widget to get some advertisements. Maybe a shoplist service on the background based on SMS.

Keep it simple. Use what there already is.

Goosie

Sorry, I think most will agree that there are tons of free cooking sites online that will give me my Thanksgiving time turkey recipes for free.

Look up: chef forum on Google.

Whats to keep me from giving away your recipes then for free after I buy them?

and why is the guy in the toco stand down the road not going to start making my food?

You're right GL. The risk of piracy is the main reason no one puts any original content on the web. If we could just solve that problem, we might get art, music, blogs and all kinds of good original content. </sarcasm>

sarcasm is just what we need