CAIBOK is a certification body. Our job is to define what culinary professionals should know and be able to do — the standard — and to evaluate people against it fairly. That's all we do. We don't sell the courses that prepare you, and we don't take a cut when you buy training somewhere else.
That independence is the whole point. A certification is only worth something if the organization granting it isn't also profiting from selling you the study materials. So we keep a hard wall between the two: CAIBOK owns the standard and grants the credential; separate training providers help you prepare for it.
What that means in practice:
- We never earn a commission on training, and we never pay one on a certificate, membership, or exam.
- We don't endorse any training provider. A provider can tell you their course is "aligned with the CAIBOK framework," but no one can call themselves "official CAIBOK training," because there's no such thing.
- When we point you toward training, we point you to a public list of recognized providers — never to just one — so the choice is yours.
- Anyone can build training to our framework. The framework and the standard are public and free. We actively welcome more providers, because more good preparation options make the credential more valuable, not less.
- A recognized provider can report your continuing-education completions to us electronically, the way continuing education works across licensed professions. That keeps your record current. It never influences whether you pass an exam — that decision is ours alone, based only on how you do.
Commercial Firewall Policy (full text)
The official version of this policy is maintained in English.
No commissions on CAIBOK sales — ever.
No affiliate, referral, or partner commission of any kind attaches to a CAIBOK certificate, membership, exam, or renewal. Affiliate economics live entirely on the provider side; a provider may pay commissions freely on its own products, never on a CAIBOK sale — even when the buyer arrived through an affiliate link.
CAIBOK endorses no provider.
No "official," "approved," "endorsed," "recommended," or "partner" training language originates from CAIBOK.
Providers may reference CAIBOK only factually.
Permitted: "aligned with the CAIBOK framework," "prepares you for CAIBOK certification." Not permitted: "official CAIBOK training," "CAIBOK-approved," "endorsed by CAIBOK."
CAIBOK never links directly to one provider's training as a recommendation.
Where CAIBOK points learners toward training, it points to a neutral public directory of recognized providers — never to a single provider. Providers may link to their own training freely on their own sites.
Recognition is not endorsement.
CAIBOK may maintain a public directory of providers whose programs align to the framework and/or are recognized on the CE registry. Listing is a neutral, criteria-based recognition — not a quality judgment, ranking, or recommendation, and never sold.
Continuing-education data exchange is permitted and expected.
Recognized CE providers may report member course completions electronically to the CAIBOK CE registry, the way continuing education is reported across licensed professions. This is continuing-education record-keeping. It never feeds CAIBOK's certification decisions — exam scoring, pass/fail, credential issuance, or eligibility — which CAIBOK makes solely on its own evidence.
Framework vs. content.
CAIBOK owns the framework, the standard, the exam blueprint, and the certification process. Providers own their training content. The framework evaluates; the content prepares. The two stay separate in every system and every communication.
Publishing follows the same line.
Works that define or document the framework publish under CAIBOK (reference works). Works that teach candidates how to develop competencies or pass evaluations publish under the provider (training works).
Data separation in systems.
Certification records (exam attempts, scoring, credential issuance) live in CAIBOK's systems and are not driven by provider or commercial customer data. Commercial data does not flow into certification decisions. The one permitted, bounded exchange is CE completion reporting, which records training done — not competency judged.