Question:
I have 25 years of hands-on recipe development. After tastings, I was asked to create a menu for a multi-unit bar that has subpar food. They want me to provide a sample 40-item menu after a successful tasting of 12 of them. Then they said we will talk about some kind of employment contract. Is that normal?
– Culinary developer; N.J.
Answer:
For menu developers, the line between show-me-what you-can-do type sample menu items and actual menu items developed under contract can be blurry. Who is to say that after your first tasting of 12 items, and second tasting of 40 items, they won’t ask you for yet another round before offering you a contract?
Culinary strategist Chef Henry Hill agrees. He says, “There’s value in the creating the initial idea. And there’s research in how I came up with that idea. I would ask people to pay for the initial idea, and if it works for them, we can do more together. When we research, we connect the dots. By connecting the dots, we can make educated advancements towards a truly original and spontaneous idea to occur.”
Both for readers on the consultant side and the client side of the negotiation, communication is key. My personal approach is that the first one is free. If a client needs more information than that, I show them successful outcomes from similar projects. If they like what I’ve done, we can discuss a contract. In my experience, jumping through more hoops for free to try to land a contract does not result in a better contract—and the client may just take a lot of your great ideas and efforts and further develop them on their own.
My advice is to communicate clearly what you are willing to do as part of your business development and what would require a paid contract. In our own work at the Drexel Food Lab, we define the line as when we have to get our hands dirty. That is, we don’t charge to talk through ideas or share resources, but as soon as the culinary R&D process starts in the lab, we need to be under contract.
More on pricing menu consulting here.