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      overview

Changing lifestyles affect attitudes towards food and have an adverse impact  on public health.  

Foodcounts® emphasises the importance of having a broad knowledge of the food we eat - in terms of content, storage, and preparation - 

Foodcounts® also  provides an optional system for on-line ordering from supermarkets, including a first-ever mobile phone interface.

Our ultimate objective is to construct a food intelligence network centred on a UK national database of all bar-coded foods.  The immediate plan is to  focus on the category of ready meals. 

 

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    What is it?

Foodcounts® is a multi-level food information and ordering service incorporating state of the art voice-interface. This  system is based on a new concept in data services provision. These terms are important keys to the understanding of our proposal:- 

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     How does it operate 

Foodcounts® introduces an original concept in database construction:- 

  • FoodID™  contains the data that identifies a given food-item. Initially this will be : barcode, phonetic code and food-item-taxonomy.
     

  • FoodACT™  contains the food-item-knowledge collated from individual food-item profiles. This content interacts with the FoodID™ database. It is this feature that provides the high levels of data-manipulation. 
     

  • FoodXTN™ is a secure extension database in which consumer, retailer and manufacturer profiles can be safely stored. Access is through our proprietary CoreID™ technology. This gives us the necessary security to communicate  and integrate with 3rd party databases.

Full scale inter-operability is achieved by introducing compatible voice and keyboard  technologies:-

  • a self-learning phonetic database of all base food-items including dialect and colloquial variations

  • a proprietary phonetic vocabulary database for all quantifiers and modifiers 

  • a proprietary phonetic vocabulary database. for the typologies within our food-item-taxonomy

  • applying state of the art VoiceXML speech platforms 

Email us for more information on the technical specification 

 

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     Why develop it?

The Foodcounts® addresses 4 major problems:-

  • lack of  easy to understand, accessible food-item-knowledge

  • inertia of most consumers concerning food management 

  • complexity of search and retrieval with on-line food ordering

  • absence of protocols concerning data access and interchange

Foodcounts®  also achieves key benefits:-                   

  • emergence of a national database for all UK food-items

  • vastly improved delivery system for food-item-knowledge

  • profiles of individual consumer needs satisfied by data-manipulation 

  • wider disability access through inter-operability

  • new coding of food-item-knowledge connects to intelligent kitchens 

  • database interaction with retailers allows more consumer choice 

 

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     Who will use it?

The market for an inter-operable food intelligence network will be universal. Food management, today, is an analogy of financial management 35 years ago.  The system shift, then, from cash to encoded-plastic was down to an inaugural database development including database inter-connections between consumers and the various suppliers. Foodcounts® technology, in some respects, mirrors encoded-plastic interchange, and is sufficiently novel to result in a similar shift in consumer behaviour towards food . We  also adopt the same demand-pull marketing strategy, by wholesaling our data services on a B2B basis.

Our target segments for first stage development:-

  • top 5 on-line food retailers
  • manufacturers of fridges, freezers, microwaves and ovens 
  • national slimming clubs, health clubs and gyms
  • national charities that support the: blind / partially-sighted / upper-limb-motor/ learning difficulties

The B2B revenue streams will be:

* enrolment and development fees for system connection
* subscription fees for data access based on client numbers and usage

Consumer revenue streams will be:

* share of phone and mobile call charges 
* use of Foodcounts® brand to retail food and health related products

 

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     Where will it be used?

The Foodcounts®  system can be used anywhere there are internet connections and  will operate in all environments within mobile or digital signal areas.

Therefore, regardless of location, Foodcounts® gives finger tip access to food-item-knowledge. It is this ease of access, regardless of location, that represents a significant innovation and removes the major obstacle of consumer inertia.

 

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     When will it be used?

The first stage of the Foodcounts® product development programme will be to produce a fully working prototype built around the  food-item class of convenience and ready meals. There are 3000 such main brand and own brand food-items. Our ID database will also include 1000 unbranded, or base food-items, representing the complete range of prepared meal ingredients.

This initial development will take 9 months.

The second stage will extend the ID database to include all main brand food-items. The time frame will be determined by the degree of co-operation from food-item manufacturers. An at-worst estimate is 6 months.

The final stages will involve the incorporation of own brand food-items. This will be a simple data interchange with the retailers and manufactures; and timings will be determined by the commercial and competitive issues that are raised over development period.

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Additional papers