Our Beliefs
Last updated March 26, 2026
In a commoditized, competitive space like recipes and cooking, it's hard to stand out, even to ourselves, sometimes. We wanted to help you understand — and us remember — what we are about so that you can make informed, values-aligned decisions as to who you want to work with as your digital sous chef.
Values
Respect
Simplicity
Antiparasiticism
Mission
We aim to spur the Consumer Packaged Goods industry forward. Since we were kids, CPG has always been and continues to be unhealthy, unoriginal, marketing-over-product crap. It's nearly all junk food. We envision a world where the best creators have access to the tools and relationships necessary to offer their best products on grocery store and supermarket shelves without having to sacrifice their life as a creator to do it. We trust consumers to make personally optimal choices when provided with delicious nutritious food at competitive prices.
Principles
1. Creation is paramount
Without creators, everything falls apart. You can extend this to as grand or small a scale as you want, and it holds true: without the act of creation, we would probably be dead, with the best case scenario being eking out a miserable daily-subsistence existence. Creation matters, and the people who innovate, experiment, and make stuff are the ones who matter most on this platform. We have put a lot of effort into thinking through how to protect creators and align ourselves with them in a way that we only succeed if they succeed first. We might not always make the right decisions in this regard but we promise two-way communication, rigorous review of feedback, and swift action when we inevitably fall short of our Creators' expectations.
2. Real World > Digital World
Digital stuff is cool but, in our opinion, way overrated compared to physical stuff. It's like watching porn vs having sex. We are here to make a difference in the Real World for Real People, not for the bot and bot-like digerati in the Twittersphere. We care about what you eat, how it affects your body, how all of that repeated every day affects how you show up in the world, and how all of that scaled across societies affects this world. We like the Digital World because it is good at two things: distribution and consistent schematics, and we strive to leverage those two things to impact the Real World, and we hope you will help hold us accountable to that vision.
3. Computers do what they are told, humans tell them what to do
AI is only as helpful as it is well-trained. The initial concept for OpenRecipe came after using ChatGPT for recipe generation and finding that it was edible but not great, and moreover that if we wanted to make it truly personalized and good at cooking for us, we would need to invest a ton of effort into customizing prompts. So that's basically what Master Chef is — kind of a sexed up custom prompt generator, plus some personality and a good backstory. We mention this because the AI within OpenRecipe is not intended to replace human creation, it's meant to augment it. Maybe you smoked some wacky tobacky and feeling a bit adventurous for breakfast? No problem. Let Master Chef know how you want to use those eggs, kimchi, week-old hollandaise, panko, caviar, and bbq sauce and see what he comes up with. If you like it, claim it as your own and its yours — we slap your name on it and you can do with it what you like. This "model," if you want to call it that, is important because it makes the AI a personalized creative assistant, not a competitor or something that is intended to replace human creation. As such, we hope that you will invest the clicks necessary to make Master Chef the most ass-kicking, dish-slinging awesome assistant you can and you are thrilled with the results.