[Survey of 426 Food/Beverage Developers] 85.7% of Young Staff Want Centralized Recipe Management, But Over 70% Still Use Paper/Excel: Delay in Recipe DX Becomes Clear
A survey by TasteLink revealed that over 70% of food developers rely on paper or Excel for recipe management. 85.7% of young staff desire centralized management, highlighting delayed DX and personalization issues in the industry.
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: April 23, 2026 at 22:00
- 🔍 Collected: April 23, 2026 at 13:31
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: April 23, 2026 at 23:20 (9h 48m after Collected)
TasteLink Inc. (Location: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, CEO: Kei Tomon), which operates a platform where you can send offers to food professionals, conducted an internet survey on the "Reality of Recipe Management and Product Development Processes" among 426 development managers from food manufacturers, beverage manufacturers, restaurant chains, hotel dining, home meal replacement (nakashoku), and ingredient manufacturers between February 5 and February 8, 2026. (Survey by Rakuten Insight)
The results of this survey revealed issues in the food and beverage industry such as reliance on analog methods for recipe management, operational burdens on young talent, and the personalization of recipes. Regarding recipe management methods, "Internal Systems" (52.6%) and "Excel" (49.5%) were closely matched, but 23.2% of companies manage them on "Paper", revealing the reality that about 1 in 4 people still manage recipes on a paper basis. Companies managing with analog methods like Excel and paper have reached over 70% of the total, showing that the majority of companies do not have sufficiently established digital platforms dedicated to recipes. The delay in DX (Digital Transformation) in the food and beverage industry was highlighted in concrete numbers.
On the other hand, clear needs for improvement from young frontline workers were also visible, with 85.7% of those in their 20s and 30s answering that "business efficiency will improve if recipes can be centrally managed", indicating extremely high expectations for integrated management. Particularly in their 20s, with answers like "it takes time to dig up past recipes", the reality is clear that about 70% of younger workers in the recipe development field have their time taken away by desk work such as information search and material organization. Human resources who should originally concentrate on product development itself are spending a lot of time on searching for and confirming recipes.
Furthermore, 34.0% answered "migration of existing data" as a required condition when introducing tools. This indicates that about 1 in 3 of the total desires to break away from current analog management, namely DX. A distinctive feature is that rather than simply introducing a new system, a migration utilizing the recipe assets accumulated so far is sought.
Additionally, the percentage of those who cited "personalization (knowledge confined to individuals)" as a hurdle in recipe creation and improvement reached 37.3% overall. While over 40% of those in their 20s feel personalization is an issue, a similarly high awareness of the issue of personalization exists among those in their 50s, highlighting a structure where both those who pass on and those who receive recipes recognize the problem. The situation where recipes remain within individual experiences or paper documents and are not fully shared and utilized as an organization has become a common challenge across generations.
Representative Comment
I was born into the family of the local cuisine restaurant "Tomon", which has lasted for about 50 years, and trained as a Japanese chef for about 8 years. After that, in 2011, I launched the reservation and payment service for carefully selected restaurants, "Pocket Concierge", and in 2019, I experienced M&A by American Express. I founded TasteLink in 2023, and currently, I am working on the development of the cloud recipe "ChefDeck".
In this survey, although recipes are "corporate intellectual assets", the reality that management is decentralized and the burden of rework and information organization is piling up became visible in numbers. In the phase of labor shortages and business succession, turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is an urgent matter. ChefDeck aims to become a foundation for leaving not only recipes but also the reasoning behind decisions, such as "why it was approved," as a team asset, allowing developers to regain time for the "manufacturing" they should originally concentrate on.
── Kei Tomon, Representative Director, TasteLink Inc.
In this release, we have extracted and introduced some of the results. Please download the full survey report (free) and contact us for interviews or detailed data from below.
URL: https://www.chefdeck.ai/lp
Survey Overview
Survey Name: Survey on Recipe Creation and Product Development in the Food and Beverage Industry
Survey Target: Development managers at food, beverage, restaurant, hotel dining, home meal replacement, and ingredient manufacturers
Valid Responses: 426
Survey Period: February 5 - February 8, 2026
Survey Method: Internet survey by Rakuten Insight
Survey Sponsor: Taste Link Inc.
About Taste Link Inc.
With the mission of "Updating the Food and Beverage Industry", we operate "Taste Link", a platform that allows you to offer jobs to food professionals around the world, and "ChefDeck" (https://www.chefdeck.ai/lp), a cloud recipe management platform for the food and beverage industry. On Taste Link, we match top-class chefs, including many Michelin-starred chefs, with companies, providing a one-stop service for product development, production, and PR measures.
The results of this survey revealed issues in the food and beverage industry such as reliance on analog methods for recipe management, operational burdens on young talent, and the personalization of recipes. Regarding recipe management methods, "Internal Systems" (52.6%) and "Excel" (49.5%) were closely matched, but 23.2% of companies manage them on "Paper", revealing the reality that about 1 in 4 people still manage recipes on a paper basis. Companies managing with analog methods like Excel and paper have reached over 70% of the total, showing that the majority of companies do not have sufficiently established digital platforms dedicated to recipes. The delay in DX (Digital Transformation) in the food and beverage industry was highlighted in concrete numbers.
On the other hand, clear needs for improvement from young frontline workers were also visible, with 85.7% of those in their 20s and 30s answering that "business efficiency will improve if recipes can be centrally managed", indicating extremely high expectations for integrated management. Particularly in their 20s, with answers like "it takes time to dig up past recipes", the reality is clear that about 70% of younger workers in the recipe development field have their time taken away by desk work such as information search and material organization. Human resources who should originally concentrate on product development itself are spending a lot of time on searching for and confirming recipes.
Furthermore, 34.0% answered "migration of existing data" as a required condition when introducing tools. This indicates that about 1 in 3 of the total desires to break away from current analog management, namely DX. A distinctive feature is that rather than simply introducing a new system, a migration utilizing the recipe assets accumulated so far is sought.
Additionally, the percentage of those who cited "personalization (knowledge confined to individuals)" as a hurdle in recipe creation and improvement reached 37.3% overall. While over 40% of those in their 20s feel personalization is an issue, a similarly high awareness of the issue of personalization exists among those in their 50s, highlighting a structure where both those who pass on and those who receive recipes recognize the problem. The situation where recipes remain within individual experiences or paper documents and are not fully shared and utilized as an organization has become a common challenge across generations.
Representative Comment
I was born into the family of the local cuisine restaurant "Tomon", which has lasted for about 50 years, and trained as a Japanese chef for about 8 years. After that, in 2011, I launched the reservation and payment service for carefully selected restaurants, "Pocket Concierge", and in 2019, I experienced M&A by American Express. I founded TasteLink in 2023, and currently, I am working on the development of the cloud recipe "ChefDeck".
In this survey, although recipes are "corporate intellectual assets", the reality that management is decentralized and the burden of rework and information organization is piling up became visible in numbers. In the phase of labor shortages and business succession, turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is an urgent matter. ChefDeck aims to become a foundation for leaving not only recipes but also the reasoning behind decisions, such as "why it was approved," as a team asset, allowing developers to regain time for the "manufacturing" they should originally concentrate on.
── Kei Tomon, Representative Director, TasteLink Inc.
In this release, we have extracted and introduced some of the results. Please download the full survey report (free) and contact us for interviews or detailed data from below.
URL: https://www.chefdeck.ai/lp
Survey Overview
Survey Name: Survey on Recipe Creation and Product Development in the Food and Beverage Industry
Survey Target: Development managers at food, beverage, restaurant, hotel dining, home meal replacement, and ingredient manufacturers
Valid Responses: 426
Survey Period: February 5 - February 8, 2026
Survey Method: Internet survey by Rakuten Insight
Survey Sponsor: Taste Link Inc.
About Taste Link Inc.
With the mission of "Updating the Food and Beverage Industry", we operate "Taste Link", a platform that allows you to offer jobs to food professionals around the world, and "ChefDeck" (https://www.chefdeck.ai/lp), a cloud recipe management platform for the food and beverage industry. On Taste Link, we match top-class chefs, including many Michelin-starred chefs, with companies, providing a one-stop service for product development, production, and PR measures.