Recipe Vault — How Iraca Protects Your Formulas
Your recipes are some of the most valuable intellectual property your business owns. Iraca encrypts the sensitive parts of every recipe so that even if someone gained unauthorized access to the database, your formulas would be unreadable.
What gets encrypted
Every recipe in Iraca has two layers of protection:
Recipe-level encryption
- Production notes
- Step-by-step production SOPs (standard operating procedures)
Ingredient-level encryption
- Quantities and ratios — the actual formula
- Per-ingredient notes
The recipe name and output product are kept unencrypted so you can search and list your recipes normally.
How it works
Iraca uses AES-256 encryption (the same standard used by banks and government agencies). Each value is encrypted before it is written to the database and decrypted only when your authorized session reads it. The encryption keys are stored separately from the data and are never logged or exposed.
This means:
- A database backup contains only encrypted blobs — not your formulas
- Iraca employees cannot read your recipes by querying the database directly
- A data breach at the infrastructure level does not expose your IP
What this does not protect against
Encryption at rest protects your data when it is stored. It does not prevent someone who is already logged into your Iraca account from reading recipes — that is covered by your team permissions and account security (strong password, 2FA). For maximum protection, combine Recipe Vault with role-based access to limit which team members can view recipes at all.
Frequently asked questions
Does encryption affect how I use recipes? No. Your recipes look and work exactly the same. Encryption and decryption happen automatically in the background.
What happens if Iraca loses the encryption key? Iraca backs up encryption keys with the same redundancy as the rest of the platform. Key loss would make recipes unreadable, so key management is treated as a critical infrastructure responsibility.
Can I export my recipes? Yes. CSV and print exports work normally — the data is decrypted for your authorized session before it is exported.