I'd be very interested to know how they produce it if the formula is so tightly held. At some point people need to be purchasing the ingredients and mixing them together.
It's possible to separate out these tasks such that no single person or group has every needed piece of the puzzle.
The Carthusian monks who produce Chartreuse (a collection of herbal liqueurs popular for use in cocktails) have been producing it and protecting the secret 130 ingredient recipe for over 400 years successfully. At any given time no more than three of the monks hold the entire recipe, and yet they have a company they have formed to execute most of the production without the secret being leaked.
The designated monks coordinate production and are involved in QC, as well as developing new blends for special releases, but much production is done by paid employees who do not know the complete recipe.
I suspect though that a lot of the secret behind Chartreuse isn't just the recipe, but the actual sourcing of the ingredients.
Presumably the recipe relies on very unique and location-specific herbs to the alps. Part of the justification for limiting supply is concern for the environment and sustainability of their production. The order also had to cease production while they were evicted.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the key ingredients weren't wild foraged or at least very unique species.
You could say the same about cryptographic signatures where each party only knows a part of the key, yet those all work fine. You could probably piece together the formula by a sum of some employees and some external suppliers if everyone broke their NDA, but if people keep their word, your factories could just as well see shipments of "Ingredient A" and the worker only knows how much to add to each batch.
Real life ain't abstract math. You have MSDS 'mulmen mentioned, but I also can't imagine any factory being able to just mix shipments of ingredients "A", "B", "C", etc. without the actual content being documented on purchase orders, OSHA reviews, etc. You may want to operate in secret, but at the very least, the taxman really wants to know if you aren't skimping on your dues, so there should be plenty of relevant documents in circulation.
Exactly what I was thinking. I mean how can you produce something, esp. in bulk, when the exact ingredients and quantities aren't known? Assuming it is made in a typical factory, the machines would have to be programmed and that would typically mean someone has to know. I wonder if they split the knowledge over several different groups so a group only knows a single piece? Hmm....
This is how they do it. There was a documentary about coca-cola and they explained that they completely separated the supply pipeline. Operators manipulate unlabelled sources coming from separate parts of the company.
Ive heard from others that this is how defense software engineering goes.
You write code for a certain part/spec that could go on a number of things (missle, airplane, etc). You dont know if your code will be used in a missile or not.
A fairly obvious solution (IMO) would be to have multiple people buying the ingredients, some even buying unused ingredients. That would cover purchasing.
The mixing, again, spreading it out, have factory A mix ingredients x, y, and z, factory B mix ingredients Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and factory C mix factory A and B's mixtures.
Considering how complex some software can get, it's more surprising there are people who can hold enough of the whole design in their heads that they have a good idea of what's going on in general.
supern0va|1 month ago
The Carthusian monks who produce Chartreuse (a collection of herbal liqueurs popular for use in cocktails) have been producing it and protecting the secret 130 ingredient recipe for over 400 years successfully. At any given time no more than three of the monks hold the entire recipe, and yet they have a company they have formed to execute most of the production without the secret being leaked.
The designated monks coordinate production and are involved in QC, as well as developing new blends for special releases, but much production is done by paid employees who do not know the complete recipe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartreuse_(liqueur)
legitster|1 month ago
Presumably the recipe relies on very unique and location-specific herbs to the alps. Part of the justification for limiting supply is concern for the environment and sustainability of their production. The order also had to cease production while they were evicted.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the key ingredients weren't wild foraged or at least very unique species.
ASalazarMX|1 month ago
One of the greatest use cases of security by obscurity, specially if part of the ingredients are decoys.
Etheryte|1 month ago
TeMPOraL|1 month ago
mulmen|1 month ago
nu11ptr|1 month ago
fabiensanglard|1 month ago
sieep|1 month ago
You write code for a certain part/spec that could go on a number of things (missle, airplane, etc). You dont know if your code will be used in a missile or not.
linsomniac|1 month ago
He mentions that the ingredients are shipped unlabeled from different facilities who don't know what they're making.
He then goes on to reverse engineer the formula. Because science.
awesome_dude|1 month ago
The mixing, again, spreading it out, have factory A mix ingredients x, y, and z, factory B mix ingredients Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and factory C mix factory A and B's mixtures.
torginus|1 month ago