For a business with a great product or trade idea, it is hugely important to protect what keeps your customers coming back for more. This fact is especially true in hospitality, where a unique preparation method or unorthodox agreement can set you apart from your competition. Many notable names in hospitality have achieved great success in guarding their brand secrets by employing intellectual property protection services – below are four of the most well protected operating in Australia today.
1. KFC
Famous for blending eleven herbs and spices into a delicious mix, the original recipe is protected in a vault in Kentucky, and is known to only a select few employees. The mix is produced in two halves by two different companies before being processed and distributed worldwide.
- Krispy Kreme
The recipe has been a trade secret for over 70 years now, with the original production method also kept under wraps for many years. Set up to ensure the quick sale of doughnuts while they were hot and fresh, this conveyer belt process has since been adopted by competitors, showing the dangers of not knowing your patent abilities.
- Coca Cola
A decision years ago to keep the cola recipe a trade secret rather than patenting it has proved to be a masterstroke of marketing. If Coca Cola had patented the recipe, the ingredients and method would have released publicly, to ensure people don't copy it – by protecting these details under trade secrets, Coca Cola retained a competitive advantage.
- McDonalds
The trademark Big Mac Special Sauce has been a case of wonder for generations of hungry Australians. Keeping the ingredients a strict secret proved simple for McDonalds – so simple that they in fact lost the recipe at one point in the 1980s! Luckily it was found, so people can still enjoy the taste of a sauce like no other.
It is important for businesses to protect their trade secrets and unique products.
Protect your hospitality trade secrets and brand with Alder IP
These four hospitality companies, while far larger than most enterprises, still made sure they were aware of trade secret and patent laws to ensure that they could keep the things that made their products and brand unique safe from abuse and replication. Hospitality businesses across Australia should be doing the same.
Alder IP are a team of Sydney legal professionals specialising in patent and intellectual property law – protecting your products and brand secrets from competitors has never been easier. Give us a call today to see what services we offer.