Holy taco! Did a food vendor steal his rival's recipe?

Comments (0) By Lauren Smiley Wednesday, Mar 17 2010

While you can find just about any Latin cuisine in the Mission, until recently you would have had to search hard to find an empanada — a warm pastry pouch of meat and vegetables that is to a Chilean or Argentine what a taco is to a Mexican.

Fred Noland

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But in the last two years, several empanada dealers have moved into San Francisco, and one is convinced that another ran off with his recipes and started his own company. "The empanada war is on," one seller in the Mission says. "I heard through the grapevine."

Let's back up: In 2003, Manuel Godino, a Spanish cook who'd lived in Argentina, moved to the city and was stunned to find a dearth of empanada vendors. Two years ago, he started making empanadas at La Victoria bakery on 24th Street, selling his savory pastries there and wholesale to markets around town. He called his business Venga! Empanadas. Last fall, Andres Franklin, a Puerto Rican entrepreneur with an M.B.A. from UC Berkeley, approached Godino about partnering to open a brick-and-mortar cafe downtown. Godino was interested, and in a month of back-and-forth negotiations about what percentage of the business Franklin would buy, Godino says he shared his ingredient lists so they could calculate costs. Godino tried to get Franklin to sign a confidentiality agreement so that he couldn't use the knowledge he'd gained about the business for his own purposes, but Franklin refused. The two couldn't settle on what percentage they would each own, and parted ways.

Fast-forward to January, when Franklin debuted the San Rafael–based Mas Empanadas, which wholesales its products to various locations around San Francisco. Godino claims Franklin ripped off his business, down to the cursive writing in the company's logo.

We went out with SF Weekly food critic Jonathan Kauffman to see for ourselves how similar the two companies' empanadas were. While the fillings of the beef and chicken pastries were obviously very different recipes — Mas Empanadas easily took the beef category, while Venga! slayed in the chicken — the size, weight, and shape were the same. Our critic noted the crust recipe was so similar that the only only difference between the crusts likely arose from the way the two batches were mixed and baked.

After we contacted Franklin, he wrote a four-page "off-the-record" narrative about the situation, but would only say for publication that he had enlisted the help of an outside chef to "ensure my product was unique." As to any claims of him copying, "Mas Empanadas finds these claims to be inaccurate ... and chooses not to discuss [Godino's accusations] publicly."

Godino says Franklin then called him and threatened to sue for defamation. Godino met with lawyers last week to see whether he has grounds for legal action himself. Lawsuit or not, Godino still claims the moral high ground: "If I see him, I will say he's always going to be a copy."