I have a friend who is opening a bakery... He is NOT a baker. He won't be hiring a baker for about 3 months and is asking me to consult on recipes.

How much would you charge for this?
I live in NYC so it could warrant a higher price.

Have you ever sold recipes? And for how much?

Thanks everyone!

I find it odd that he's opening a bakery but doesn't already have any tried and true recipes to work with.

As far as selling a recipe, if you came up with it, then I guess you could, but then I'd find out if by selling it he expects to own the exclusive rights to it. If you didn't really come up with the recipe, then I'm not sure about selling it, since he could go else where to find it.

We've done consulting before (usually to help with decorating) at $60/hour...this is the same rate as for private baking classes, which includes recipes that do not fall within our core product line.

If we were approached with this we would be happy to help the client build their own portfolio of recipes based on standard baking techniques (at the consulting rate), but we would not include our own recipes or any of our IP.

On the other hand, if you are confident in your friend's ability to succeed with this business you may want to consider providing recipes in exchange for equity in the company -- if you are providing core IP for the bakery it's only fair that you should share in the ownership.

He's a business man. He's got the look and feel to fit in with the Manhattan crowd
With a unique idea that will carry its weight.

He's been testing recipes himself but needs help. He doesn't want to hire a baker that he needs to pay 40 hours a week until he gets closer to a store front. He knows im a baker so he figured I could help fill the gap
( I can't see leaving my day job for someone else's business)
I might however trade recipes for time in his kitchen for my caking so I don't have too
Rent space.

Lots of great ideas. Thanks everyone. Any other advice is appreciated

If you have a lot of recipes that are yours exclusively, then I would NOT just hand them over. If he makes a good living off of YOUR recipes then where are you left?? Years ago I worked as an editor for a baking website and let her post my personal recipes. Well now SHE has the copyright AND they are behind a "pay" website, so I now count those recipes as gone.

Protect your recipes. Charge a consulting fee and as a commercial bakery they will need commercial scale recipes, so point them in that direction. There are industry publications and books that give out the large scale recipes that are a great starting place.

Tami

While I can bake almost anything
I really prefer to bake just cakes.
He wants recipes for all sorts of things that I could never see myself
producing on a daily basis... Or really ever for that matter.

He won't get anywhere near my cake recipes!
Hes only going to have 1 or 2 cupcakes on his menu anyway
so I'm sure I can still help him with that too.

Be sure to never give out any recipe you use for your business, or may use in the future.

I wrote a blogpost recently that is tangentially related to this discussion, Copyright Infringement and Recipe Use, http://bakingfix.com/thefix/?p=4093