Digital Menu Filtering Using CV and NLP for Dietary Compliance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing restaurant menus do not effectively accommodate diverse dietary restrictions, leading to potential consumption of non-compliant foods and reliance on human staff for adjustments, causing distress and inefficiencies.
Innovation Solution
Utilizing computer vision and natural language processing to extract and analyze menu text, identify compliant and non-compliant ingredients, and generate customized digital menus for users based on their dietary restrictions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional restaurant menus are used without customization, then the menu structure remains simple and easy to maintain, but users with dietary restrictions cannot effectively identify compliant menu items, leading to potential consumption of non-compliant foods
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the menu system into multiple components: the original menu data structure, a dietary restriction database, and a customized menu generation module. This segmentation allows the system to maintain the simplicity of the original menu while adding customization capabilities through separate modular components that process and filter menu items based on dietary restrictions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary software application that acts as a mediator between the original menu and the user. This intermediary layer processes menu items, checks them against dietary restriction criteria, and generates customized views without modifying the original menu structure, thereby maintaining simplicity while improving reliability.
2Adaptability or versatility
If staff manually adjust menus for dietary restrictions, then customization can be provided, but it relies on human knowledge and competence, causing inefficiencies and potential errors
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a self-service system where the software application automatically generates customized menus based on user-selected dietary restrictions. The system independently processes menu items, checks compliance with dietary criteria, and presents customized results without requiring staff intervention, thereby eliminating reliance on human knowledge while maintaining high adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical human staff intervention with an automated computer-based system. The software application uses algorithms to process menu items and check dietary compliance, substituting human cognitive processes with automated computational processes that are faster, more accurate, and scalable.
3Measurement precision
If comprehensive ingredient analysis is performed for all menu items, then dietary compliance can be accurately determined, but the processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-processing menu items and storing their ingredient information in a structured format before customization is needed. The system prepares the menu data in advance, organizing ingredients and their properties so that when a user requests a customized menu, the analysis can be performed quickly by retrieving pre-processed information rather than analyzing everything from scratch.
Data Source
AI summary
An approach is provided for customizing a restaurant menu. Dietary restrictions of a user are received. Text is extracted from a digital version of a menu of a restaurant. Ingredient(s) of a first menu item are identified within the extracted text. Using natural language processing (NLP), it is determined that the ingredient(s) include at least one ingredient that does not comply with the dietary restrictions. Ingredient(s) of a second menu item are identified within the extracted text. Using NLP, it is determined that the ingredient(s) of the second menu item comply with the dietary restrictions. Based on the at least one ingredient being in non-compliance and the ingredient(s) of the second menu item being in compliance, a digital menu is generated that includes the second menu item, but does not include the first menu item. The digital menu is displayed to the user.