Nooks & Crannies

This episode of Revisionist History, hosted by Malcolm Gladwell and featuring Ben Nadaf-Hafri, delves into the legal battle surrounding Thomas's English Muffins and their closely guarded "nooks and crannies" recipe. The episode explores the story of Chris Botticella, a former Grupo Bimbo executive accused of stealing trade secrets when he moved to competitor Hostess. Through interviews with intellectual property lawyer Louis Deljudice and NYU Law School's Jeannie Seifromer, the podcast examines the power and potential dangers of trade secrets, comparing the situation to the secrecy within Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. The episode further investigates the details of the legal case, featuring an interview with Botticella's lawyer, Liz Ainsley, who argues that the case was more about preventing executive mobility than protecting a specific recipe, setting the stage for an attempt to reverse engineer the Thomas's English Muffin recipe in the next episode.