Backlash: Cookpad's "Recipe Scrap" Feature Sparks Outrage Among Recipe Creators

On March 19, 2026, Cookpad launched a new feature called "Recipe Scrap," triggering an immediate backlash from prominent recipe creators. The feature uses AI to automatically extract recipes posted on external sites and social media, saving them within the Cookpad app. Critics have condemned it as showing "zero respect for recipe creators."

The first to speak out was Ryuji, a cooking YouTuber with over 5 million subscribers. On March 21, he posted this on his X account:

"Cookpad's new feature is outrageous. It lets you easily import recipes from food creators on Instagram, X, and other platforms that aren't even on Cookpad, so you can view everything within the Cookpad app without ever visiting the original post. We're out here busting our tails building our own channels. This shows zero respect for recipe creators."

This post set off a wave of criticism from other creators, including Tadasuke Tomita of Sirogohan.com, Joe-san, and Marumi Kitchen. The controversy escalated rapidly. Cookpad issued an official statement on March 22, but by declining to suspend the feature, they only fueled further backlash.

What Is "Recipe Scrap"?

"Recipe Scrap" is a new feature Cookpad released on March 19. When users paste a URL from Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, or any website into the Cookpad app, AI automatically extracts the ingredients and cooking steps, saving them to the app's "Records" section.

There are two ways to use it. The first is through the share button in external apps (like Instagram or X), selecting Cookpad as the destination. The second is tapping the "+" button in the Cookpad app, choosing "Import Recipe," and pasting the URL.

Saved recipes are treated as private and support keyword search by ingredients. A link to the original post is also included.

The pricing structure is as follows:

Free members are limited to 5 imports per week. Premium members (550 yen/month) get unlimited imports. This structure, where unlimited access requires payment, has become a central point of the criticism discussed below.

What Are Recipe Creators Angry About?

Following Ryuji's post, multiple recipe creators spoke out one after another. Their criticisms can be distilled into three main points: traffic is being diverted from original sites, other people's content is being used to drive paid subscriptions, and the feature shows a fundamental lack of respect for recipe creators.

Ryuji's Critique

Ryuji tested the feature himself by importing one of his own recipes, reporting that "the entire cooking process was imported." He added:

"This is a system that only benefits Cookpad. Isn't this going way too far?"

Tadasuke Tomita of Sirogohan.com

Tadasuke Tomita, who runs the recipe site Sirogohan.com, voiced his concerns from the perspective of an independent operator:

"This is a feature I'd rather users didn't use."
"I run my site independently with monthly fixed costs, and this could make it impossible to sustain my recipe publishing."

Tomita also pointed out that "recipes may not be copyrightable, but photos are," raising questions about the AI extracting images alongside text.

Joe-san's Criticism

Joe-san used stronger language to highlight the structural problem:

"There's no way we can accept others freeloading off content we poured our hearts into."
"It's a system that exploits people who are barely getting by on the recipes they've worked so hard to create."

Marumi Kitchen's Suggestion

Marumi Kitchen suggested redesigning the feature so users would need to return to the original social media post to view the recipe. They also cited specific impacts: "view counts and saves will drop" and "the revenue share back to creators will decrease."

How Did Cookpad Respond?

On the evening of March 22, the day after the backlash erupted, Cookpad issued a statement via its official X account and official website. The key points were:

• Recipe Scrap is meant for personal record-keeping of recipes found on social media and the web
• It does not publish or redistribute recipes
• A link to the original post is always included
• They "sincerely accept" the criticism and will "review the feature's specifications"
• Direct dialogue with creators is planned, and a feedback channel (creator-feedback@cookpad.com) has been set up

However, they made clear that the feature would not be suspended. This stance has drawn fresh criticism, with users asking "Where's the sincerity?" and "How can you say you're reviewing it while keeping it running?"

As of March 23, multiple media outlets including ITmedia and Otakuma Keizai Shimbun have published follow-up reports, and the controversy continues to grow.

"Isn't This the Same as Notion?" -- A Defense and Its Rebuttal

Some have defended Cookpad in this controversy. The most common argument is: "Notion and Evernote also have web clipping features (which save web page content), so isn't this fundamentally the same thing?"

Both sides of the debate have been laid out on platforms like Togetter, but critics point to the following differences:

In other words, the core issue isn't "having a web clipping feature" per se, but rather "making other people's recipe content self-contained within the app and using that convenience as a selling point for paid memberships." That's the crux of the counter-argument.

What's Really Happening Under the Hood (A Technical View)

Here's what "Recipe Scrap" does from a technical standpoint: a user pastes a URL, Cookpad's server accesses that URL and retrieves the HTML, AI extracts "ingredients," "quantities," and "steps" from the text, then reformats and saves it in the app. It's essentially a combination of web scraping (automated collection of web page data) and AI-powered structured extraction.

What makes this particularly tricky is that many recipe sites embed Schema.org Recipe structured data in their HTML to display ingredients and cooking times in Google search results. Sirogohan.com, for example, marks up each recipe page with machine-readable "ingredients," "steps," and "cooking time" data. The very data they organized for SEO purposes ironically makes AI extraction that much easier.

Some have suggested "just block it with robots.txt (a configuration file that controls crawler access)," but in this case, users are pasting the URLs themselves, so the access path differs from typical crawlers. While it's technically possible to block Cookpad's server based on its User-Agent (the identifier of the requester), there's no way to do so if Cookpad doesn't publicly disclose their User-Agent string.

From a technical perspective, this feature is "server-side scraping triggered by user action + AI structuring," which is fundamentally different from browser bookmarks or Notion's web clipper (which run in the user's browser). The key distinction for engineers is that the platform's server is fetching and processing external site HTML.

Are Recipes Copyrightable?

A legal question that can't be avoided in this discussion: do recipes have copyright protection in the first place?

Under Japanese copyright law, the idea of a dish itself -- factual information like "use 200g of chicken" or "bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes" -- is generally not eligible for copyright protection. This is based on the "idea-expression dichotomy," where copyright protects the "expression" of an idea, not the idea itself.

However, the following elements may qualify for copyright protection:

• The written expression of a recipe (unique phrasing and narrative voice)
• Photos and videos of the cooking process and finished dish
• Cases where the overall composition and layout demonstrates originality

When Tomita said "recipes may not be copyrightable, but photos are," he was speaking with this legal framework in mind.

Separately from copyright, platforms like Instagram, X, and TikTok often prohibit automated collection and scraping in their terms of service. Some have pointed out potential terms-of-service violations.

Furthermore, Cookpad's characterization of the feature as "personal record-keeping" has been questioned, given that the pricing structure of 5 free imports per week versus unlimited for paid members makes it hard to call it purely a "personal note-taking" tool.

Nine Consecutive Years of Declining Revenue: The Context Behind the New Feature

Behind this controversy lies Cookpad's struggling business.

According to their fiscal year 2025 (ending December) results, revenue was 5.3 billion yen, operating income was 1 billion yen, and net income was 740 million yen. While still profitable, revenue has declined for nine consecutive fiscal years.

Headcount was cut from 393 to 125 -- a 68.2% reduction. In 2023, they shut down six business units and conducted voluntary retirement programs affecting 80 employees at overseas subsidiaries.

Once Japan's dominant recipe platform, Cookpad has been losing users to recipe creators who publish on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

In this context, the design of "Recipe Scrap" -- pulling external recipe content into the app and using it to drive Premium subscriptions -- can be seen as a revenue-first decision. But that decision has come at the cost of severely damaging relationships with the very recipe creators the platform depends on.

Timeline

← Swipe to navigate

Follow-up (2026-03-22)

The Statement Was Dated "2025"

The official statement from March 22 had another problem. It was dated "2025, March 22" -- exactly one year off.

SmartFLASH called it "an inexcusably basic mistake," and Cookpad later apologized for the error. Getting the date wrong on a crisis-response statement has raised questions about the organization's review processes.

Why the Statement Poured Fuel on the Fire

Rather than calming the situation, the statement made it worse. From March 23 onward, national media outlets including J-CAST, SmartFLASH, Yahoo! News Expert, and Sponichi Annex all covered the story.

The statement failed for three reasons:

• 1. No answer on the traffic diversion issue. They emphasized that "a link is included," but since ingredients and steps are fully available within the app, visits to the original site will inevitably decline. This core issue went unaddressed
• 2. Zero mention of Premium monetization. Free members are limited to 5 per week, while Premium members (550 yen/month) get unlimited imports -- a structure that effectively monetizes other people's content. This was completely ignored
• 3. Refusal to suspend the feature. By stating they would "review" while keeping the feature running, they sparked fresh backlash about a lack of sincerity

Cookpad's Dire Situation

As noted earlier, Cookpad's revenue has declined for nine consecutive years and its workforce has been cut from 393 to 125 -- a 68.2% reduction. While still profitable, the company's position as "Japan's largest recipe site" has been steadily eroded by cooking creators on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

In this context, the decision to pull external recipe content into the app and use it to drive Premium signups is understandable from a business perspective. But the bitter irony is that the "external content" being harvested belongs to the very creators who have been taking users away from Cookpad -- and that's what has made this controversy so explosive.

Several days have passed since the statement, but no concrete actions such as specification changes or a temporary suspension have been announced.

References

• ITmedia
• Cookpad Official Statement
• coki (initial report)
• coki (follow-up)
• Otakuma Keizai Shimbun
• Togetter
• Cookpad News
• entamesnap
• Ryuji's X post
• Cookpad Official X post
• note article
• J-CAST: Cookpad says "We sincerely accept the feedback" -- explains controversial new feature
• SmartFLASH: Ryuji slams "AI recipe import" feature
• Yahoo! News Expert (Rikiya Yamaji): Why the new feature sparked a firestorm