Welcome to the Dave Chang Show, part of the Ring of Podcast Network.

This is David Chang.

Not in your normal podcast.

This podcast is going to try to address the debate that's been playing out

over the past few days over social media news

about Momofuku enforcing its trademark of the term

chili crunch. If you haven't been following along and not everybody has so I don't

want this to be strange if you're listening to this.

Essentially what's happened is that when we started selling MomoFuku Chili Crunch in 2020,

and I know this sounds asinine, but it's true and it really was important to us. We thought the word crunch would

separate us from sauces like Laogamah and other sauces that had the word

crisp. But what we're learning this week and in a painful way learning is that the terms

crunch and crisp are essentially the same thing in Mandarin. In holding the term

crunch as a trademark, Momofuku can be seen as trying to own a piece of

Chinese culture and heritage, which is exactly the opposite of what we wanted to

achieve. It can also be seen that we're trying to squeeze people out of

the space and have you know trying to be a monopoly and and not play nice. I can

totally understand how people could see these things, but I don't know how I can

have you trust me, but it's the truth. This is not the case. Anyway, I hope this podcast

will be able to explain some of these things to you.

It's really complicated. I mean, I don't think nuance is the right word, but there's a lot of information.

But most importantly, I wanted to accomplish three things, first and foremost. I want to accomplish three things first and foremost.

...