The sad thing is that you cannot copyright a recipe. You could take a bottle of KC Masterpiece off of the shelf, pay a lab to break it down for you and change the amount of pepper by a teaspoon and call it your own. You have to be able to market and promote yourself, your name & your company better than the next guy in order to succeed. Most non disclosure agreements only protect you in the state you are doing business, make sure that the non disclosure agreement is for anywhere & everywhere. Large companies with the money available, have in the past, taken a clients recipe and produced it out of state under another name, because they have the resources to have it on the shelf before you can even cut the check to have it made. It's a cut throat business and I have learned some very valuable lessons the hard way. Hope this helps a bit.......