Wilson Certified Foods, Inc. v. Fairbury Food Products, Inc.

Wilson Certified Foods, Inc. (Wilson) (plaintiff) developed a process for cooking small pieces of bacon into a product it called Bits-O-Bacon. Arden Schacht was a foreman of the department where the process was developed. Schacht later left Wilson and became president of Fairbury Food Products, Inc. (Fairbury) (defendant). Fairbury began producing a product similar to Bits-O-Bacon. Wilson filed suit against Fairbury for unlawful appropriation of a trade secret. At trial, Wilson did not claim that Schacht had taken any written documents from Wilson. In addition, at trial, the following facts were proven: The process used by Wilson was essentially a version of a common process called dry rendering. The process was openly taught and used by many Wilson employees. While Wilson had security measures in place for entering the plant where the process was developed and implemented, they were general security measures that were not specifically focused on protecting the Bits-O-Bacon process or operation. While Bits-O-Bacon had been a successful revenue-generating product, there were other products on the market that were not substantially different from Bits-O-Bacon. Wilson had lost all records of the development of the Bits-O-Bacon process and could not provide information about how much effort or money was expended in that process. The process could easily be duplicated by a chemist without any assistance in a short period of time.