A rivalry between two local Hispanic bakeries has gone guerrilla, with one business alleging the other stole its prized recipes.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Saul Hernandez-Mendoza, owner of Tienda y Panaderia Santa Cruz on North Lombard Street, accuses two former employees of taking his recipes to a rival business.
According to the lawsuit, those employees—Luis Moralez and Bejamin Gomez Mendoza—went on to work for El Grande Bakery, which now bakes identical cakes and pastries to the ones Hernandez sells.
“These recipes and baking methods constituted valuable trade secrets not publicly known and … the cakes and pastries made from them were and are in great demand by the Hispanic community in the greater Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area,” the lawsuit says.
Attached to the lawsuit are copies of confidentiality agreements signed by both former employees. According to those documents, Moralez made $420 a week working for Hernandez. Gomez made $650.
The defendants worked for Hernandez for about six months each, leaving the company on Oct. 1 last year to take jobs at El Grande Bakery, the lawsuit says.
The defendants, Moralez and Gomez, could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit, filed by Portland attorney Dennis Stenzel, seeks $10,000 in damages plus an injunction preventing Moralez and Gomez from using or disseminating Hernandez’s trade secrets.
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