Check Foodcounts® homepage for Intellectual Property statement ©1999-2018

First Foodcounts Proposal 2001

Contents:

1. Overview

1. 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 - 

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.

2. 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:- 

*Food-item

*Food-Item-Knowledge

*Food-Item-Taxonomy

*Data-Manipulation

*Inter-Operability
 

3. 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 
   

4. WHY DEVELOP IT

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 
   

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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.

-end-

ADDITIONAL PAPERS

• 1. paper (blank: original report layout)

• 2. paper (how it works: how does it operate)

• 3. paper (key definitions)

• 4. paper (overview)

• 5. paper (proposal: alternative layout)

• 6. paper (summary: original proposal summary)

• 7. paper (what: a graphic of what is food counts)

• 8. paper (why develop it 2:  optional report layout)

• 9. paper 1 (why develop it 4: optional report layout)

 blank | overview | proposal | how-it-works | what

 why-develop-it-2 | why-develop-it-4 | key-definitions