Patent Grant
12118599
The disclosed embodiments relate generally to the food service industry, and in particular to systems and methods for adjusting ingredient composition of all or some food items in a retail setting to satisfy the nutritional, caloric, and price requirements of a customer.
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims of this invention, and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion herein.
Food is one of the fundamental needs of human beings. Middle and lower income classes of consumers constitute the majority of the population, domestically and abroad, and a fair portion of the income of the members of these social classes is spent on food. While some ingredients may be selected or withheld by customer choice, there is presently little or no control given to a consumer over the overall pricing, full recipe ingredient composition, total caloric content, and/or nutritional value of food items selected from a prepared menu (menu items). Most control is given in simply choosing a different menu item. For instance, consider a chain retail restaurant that offers a roast-beef sandwich with some flexibility in the sandwich size (and hence prices); however, the chain retail restaurant only provides foot-long and 6-inch sandwiches with prices of $8 and $5, respectively. If a customer is only willing to spend $4 on a sandwich, short of a manager willing to enter into negotiations for the price of a modified sandwich, there are practically no options for that customer except to choose something else from the prepared menu. As another example of the prior art, there may be certain nutritional properties that are preferred by a customer, such as amount of intake for total calories, total fat, cholesterol, and so on. Even fewer options are available to control for caloric intake or nutritional value of menu items.
Thus, there is a need for an ability to give customers more control over how much they spend in a retail food establishment rather than a single option of prepared menus dictating the price of the food by the food industry owners. Consequently, it would be desirable to have a customer option of controlling food pricing, ingredient composition and/or the amount of each ingredient, and the caloric and nutritional content of food items (including managing the intake of beneficial and potentially harmful/unhealthy ingredients that are to be consumed by the customer).
It is an object of this invention to satisfy the need for customer-user food options as systems and methods that allow a customer-user to customize a food order from a menu item list by modifying the ingredient components as desired by one or more factors (e.g., pricing, caloric content, nutritional value, etc.) and pay accordingly to the content modification of ingredients and/or constrained by a predetermined price set by the customer-user. It is another object of the invention to allow for a non-menu item to be generated using the system and methods of the present invention as created or requested by a user by inputting requested ingredients with or without other item limitations or bounds (e.g., calorie, price, etc.), thus creating a new recipe for a food item to order. The present invention provides a dynamic pricing method and a process of algorithms to accomplish these objects.
In one aspect, the present invention provides A system for dynamic pricing of menu items comprising a computing device, the computing device being a hardware component of the system; at least one user terminal in communication with the computing device; at least one memory element in communication with the computing device, the at least one memory element storing a plurality of sets of data entries and a plurality of instructions that when executed by the computing device execute the steps of providing a user interface application displayed on the at least one user terminal, the user interface application providing a customer-user with at least an option to order a selected food menu item and an option to modify the selected food menu item before purchase; in response to receiving a first customer-user selection, via an electronic input at the at least one user terminal, of the option to order a food menu item, searching the at least one memory element wherein said at least one memory element stores a first set of data entries for a plurality of food menu items available for order, displaying the selected food menu item and associated food menu item base information comprising at least an associated food menu item base price, and displaying the further option to modify the selected food menu item before purchase; in response to receiving a second customer-user selection, via an electronic input at the at least one user terminal, of the option to modify the selected food menu item before purchase, searching the at least one memory element wherein said at least one memory element stores a second set of data entries for the plurality of food menu items available for order, wherein the second set of data entries corresponds to the first set of data entries and comprises at least recipe data for the food menu items available for order, displaying an option to modify at least one recipe ingredient component of the selected food menu item.
In some embodiments, the option to modify at least one recipe ingredient component of the selected food menu item comprises the steps in response to receiving a customer-user selection, via an electronic input at the at least one user terminal, of a modification of the price of the selected food menu item, searching a third set of data entries that corresponds to the second set of data entries and comprises ingredient pricing costs for each ingredient of the recipe data for the selected food menu item, processing a change in one or more ingredients of the selected food menu item to meet the received price modification, processing a change in the price of the modified food menu item corresponding to the ingredient change, and displaying the ingredient change and the price change of the selected food menu item to the customer-user. In some embodiments, the option to modify at least one recipe ingredient component of the selected food menu item further comprises the steps in response to receiving a customer-user selection, via an electronic input at the at least one user terminal, of a modification of the price of the selected food menu item, searching a fourth set of data entries that corresponds to the third set of data entries and comprises ingredient profit limits for each ingredient of the recipe data for the selected food menu item, processing a feasibility of the modified price, and displaying a message to the customer-user rejecting the received modified price if not feasible or displaying a message to the customer-user accepting the received modified price if feasible. In other embodiments, the option to modify at least one recipe ingredient component of the selected food menu item comprises the steps in response to receiving a customer-user selection, via an electronic input at the at least one user terminal, of a modification of the caloric content of the selected food menu item, searching a third set of data entries that corresponds to the second set of data entries and comprises ingredient caloric content for each ingredient of the recipe data for the selected food menu item, processing a change in one or more ingredients of the selected food menu item to meet the received caloric content modification, processing a change in the price of the modified food menu item corresponding to the ingredient change, and displaying the ingredient change and the price change of the selected food menu item to the customer-user. Caloric content modifications may comprise a change in a saturated fat content, an unsaturated fat content, a total fat content, a sugars content, a carbohydrate content, a protein content, or combinations thereof.
In some embodiments, the option to modify at least one recipe ingredient component of the selected food menu item comprises the steps in response to receiving a customer-user selection, via an electronic input at the at least one user terminal, of a modification of the nutritional content of the selected food menu item, searching a third set of data entries that corresponds to the second set of data entries and comprises ingredient nutritional content for each ingredient of the recipe data for the selected food menu item, processing a change in one or more ingredients of the selected food menu item to meet the received nutritional content modification, processing a change in the price of the modified food menu item corresponding to the ingredient change, and displaying the ingredient change and the price change of the selected food menu item to the customer-user. The modification of the nutritional content may comprise a change in a saturated fat content, an unsaturated fat content, a total fat content, a sugars content, a carbohydrate content, a protein content, a total calorie content, a water content, a vitamin content, a mineral content, a salt content, a caffeine content, a preservative content, a food dye content, a non-nutritive food additive content, or combinations thereof.
In some preferred embodiments, the first set of data entries and second set of data entries are stored as a data matrices. Some preferred embodiments further comprise the steps in response to receiving a customer-user selection, via an electronic input at the at least one user terminal, of an acceptance of the displayed ingredient change and the price change, generating an order ticket price receipt and saving the order in a database. The computing device may comprise a central processing unit, a microprocessor, a DSP, a GPU, a distributed processing system, a general purpose processor, a FPGA, or a combination thereof. In some embodiments, the computing device comprises a custom programmed FPGA pricing calculator with an integral non-volatile memory element containing food menu item recipe and pricing data. The at least one memory element is at least two memory elements comprising a nonvolatile memory element that includes a database storage unit and a volatile cache memory element. In some preferred embodiments, the computing device is remote relative to the user terminal, and/or the system further comprises a remote server in communication with the computing device. In some embodiments, the system may further comprise a web application software component accessible by the customer-user. In some preferred embodiments, the user terminal may be selected from the group consisting of a smartphone, a laptop, a tablet, a desktop computer, and a web app terminal. In some preferred embodiments, the system further comprises an administration software component stored in the at least one memory element.
In some embodiments, the option to modify the selected food menu item before purchase is limited to a predetermined database of acceptable modified food menu items. In some preferred embodiments, the option to modify at least one recipe ingredient component of the selected food menu item comprises an option selected from the group consisting of an option to modify the price of the selected food menu item, an option to modify the caloric content of the selected food menu item, an option to modify the nutritional content of the selected food menu item, and combinations thereof. In some preferred embodiments, the computing device is a CPU and a custom pricing calculator, the at least one memory element is at least two memory elements comprising a non-volatile database storage unit and a volatile cache, and further comprising a network connection, and wherein the non-volatile database storage unit includes a matrix architecture storing data entries in a series of layered matrices corresponding to a data set comprising a food menu item listing.
In some preferred embodiments, the option to modify at least one recipe ingredient component of the selected food menu item comprises the steps in response to receiving a customer-user selection, via an electronic input at the at least one user terminal, of at least one food menu item characteristic bounds selected from the group consisting of a nutritional content, a caloric content, a pricing, and combination thereof; searching the plurality of sets of data entries; and displaying a retrieved food menu item matching the received at least one food menu item characteristic bounds. In more preferred embodiments, the system further comprises the step of processing a change in one or more ingredients of the retrieved food menu item to meet the received at least one food menu item characteristic bounds; processing a change in the price of the retrieved food menu item corresponding to the ingredient change, and displaying the ingredient change and the price change of the retrieved food menu item to the customer-user. In still more preferred embodiments, the step of processing a change in one or more ingredients of the retrieved food menu item to meet the received at least one food menu item characteristic bounds includes solving an optimization equation (Formula I):
{circumflex over (x)}=argmax g(x, L)
subject to:
∀i∈S: xi=0
∀i∈S, 1≤xi≤Mi,
x∈HL∩Hx
T+fc(x, C)≤
In another aspect, the present invention provides a method for dynamic pricing of menu items comprising: providing a computer readable memory element comprising a plurality of data sets, wherein a first data set contains data entries for a plurality of food menu items populating a food menu item listing; receiving a first input from a customer-user selection of a food menu item from the food menu item listing; searching the first data set in the plurality of data sets for data entries associated with the selected food menu item; displaying stored food menu item data entries for the selected food menu item and an option for a modification of the selected food menu item; receiving a second input from the customer-user selection of a request to modify the selected food menu item; searching a second data set in the plurality of data sets for data entries associated with the selected food menu item, wherein the second data set contains recipe data corresponding to the first data set data entries; and displaying at least one recipe data stored food menu item information for the selected food menu item and an option for a modification of a recipe ingredient of the selected food menu item.
In some embodiments, the option for a modification of a recipe ingredient of the selected food menu item is selected from the group consisting of an option for a modification of a calorie content of the selected food menu item, an option for a modification of a nutritional content of the selected food menu item, an option for a modification of a price of the selected food menu item, and combinations thereof. In some embodiments, the option for a modification of a recipe ingredient of the selected food menu item is an option for a modification of a calorie content of the selected food menu item and wherein the modification of the calorie content comprises a change in a saturated fat content, an unsaturated fat content, a total fat content, a sugars content, a carbohydrate content, a protein content, or combinations thereof. In preferred embodiments, the method further comprises an option for a modification of a price of the selected food menu item.
In some embodiments, the option for a modification of a recipe ingredient of the selected food menu item is an option for a modification of a nutritional content of the selected food menu item and wherein the modification of the nutritional content comprises a change in a saturated fat content, an unsaturated fat content, a total fat content, a sugars content, a carbohydrate content, a protein content, a total calorie content, a water content, a vitamin content, a mineral content, a salt content, a caffeine content, a preservative content, a food dye content, a non-nutritive food additive content, or combinations thereof. In preferred embodiments, the method further comprises an option for a modification of a price of the selected food menu item. In more preferred embodiments, the option for a modification of a recipe ingredient of the selected food menu item is an option for a modification of a price of the selected food menu item.
In a further aspect, the present invention provides a method for dynamic pricing of menu items comprising: providing a computer readable memory element comprising a plurality of data sets, wherein a first data set contains data entries for a plurality of food menu items populating a food menu item listing; receiving a first input from a customer-user selection of a food menu item from the food menu item listing; searching the first data set in the plurality of data sets for data entries associated with the selected food menu item; displaying stored food menu item data entries for the selected food menu item and an option for a modification of the selected food menu item; receiving a second input from the customer-user selection of a request to modify the selected food menu item; searching a second data set in the plurality of data sets for data entries associated with the selected food menu item, wherein the second data set contains cost data corresponding to the first data set data entries; and displaying at least one recipe data stored food menu item information for the selected food menu item and an option for a modification of a price of the selected food menu item.
In yet another aspect, the present invention provides a method for dynamic pricing of menu items comprising: providing a computer readable memory element comprising a plurality of data sets, wherein a first data set contains data entries for a plurality of food menu items populating a food menu item listing, a second data set contains data entries for a recipe comprising one or more individual ingredients corresponding to each of the plurality of food menu items populating a food menu item listing, and a third data set contains data entries for ingredient costs corresponding to each of the plurality of food menu items populating a food menu item listing; displaying an option to select a food menu item of the food menu item listing and an option to select a food menu item characteristic bounds selected from the group consisting of a nutritional content, a caloric content, a pricing, and combination thereof; receiving a first input from a customer-user selection of the option to select a food menu item characteristic bounds; processing the first input comprising the food menu item characteristic bounds; searching the plurality of data sets for data entries matching the food menu item characteristic bounds; and displaying at least one option including an option to select a retrieved food menu item matching the food menu item characteristic bounds.
In some embodiments, the at least one option is at least two options further comprising an option to revise the food menu item characteristic bounds. In still other embodiments, the characteristic bounds is a nutritional content. In other embodiments, the characteristic bounds is a caloric content. In further embodiments, the characteristic bounds is a pricing.
In some embodiments, the method further comprises modifying a recipe in the second data set to generate a modified food menu item matching the food menu item characteristic bounds. In some preferred embodiments, the step of processing the first input comprising the food menu item characteristic bounds includes solving an optimization equation (Formula I):
{circumflex over (x)}=argmax g(x, L)
subject to:
∀i∈S: xi=0
∀i∈S, 1≤xi≤Mi,
x∈HL∩Hx
T+fc(x, C)≤
where {circumflex over (x)} is the solution, S is a set of ingredients requested by customer, g is a desirability function, Mi is a max count bound on the ith ingredient, HL and HL are an induced spaces by constraints on ingredients and requested nutrients, T is a tax, fc is cost function including profit, and Cost is the amount the customer is willing to pay.
Further advantages of the invention will become apparent by reference to the detailed description of preferred embodiments when considered in conjunction with the drawings which form a portion of the disclosure and wherein:
The following detailed description is presented to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the invention. For purposes of explanation, specific details are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that these specific details are not required to practice the invention. Descriptions of specific applications are provided only as representative examples. Various modifications to the preferred embodiments will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments and applications without departing from the scope of the invention. The present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown, but is to be accorded the widest possible scope consistent with the principles and features disclosed herein.
Described herein are the invention methods and processes for a customer-user, to option on for a seller of food items, where the customer-user desires to adjust the portion size and/or composition of food items, or to accommodate the customer-user desired purchase expense and/or nutrient (minerals, carbohydrates, fat, minerals, water and proteins) intake. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous examples and specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the aspects of the invention systems and methods. It should be understood that the disclosed systems and methods are not restricted to fast food chain restaurants and can be extended to other types of restaurants or food related services, such as ice-cream shops, ethnic restaurants, food caterers, bakeries, and so on.
Described herein are systems, processes, and methods providing dynamic pricing in the food service industry, including customer-user modification of the ingredients (i.e., contents/composition), caloric and nutritional contents, and/or price of all or some food menu items to meet demand of an individual customer-user. In some embodiments, a system is configured to apply one or more algorithms to process modifications of a composition of a food menu item (e.g., the recipe of a sandwich, including amount of each ingredient, such as bread, meat, cheese, vegetables, and condiments) to accommodate the desired price, caloric content, and/or nutritional intake of the customer-user.
In some embodiments, a dynamic pricing process is set up for a retail food establishment where a customer-user has full control to set parameters of a food menu item, such as a price (optionally, within certain predetermined limits), amount of and/or type of ingredients, and the caloric and micro & macro nutritional contents (e.g. vitamin, protein, water, mineral, carbohydrates and fat). In preferred embodiments, the set parameters are fulfilled within a small margin of error.
In some embodiments, the dynamic pricing process and recipe modifications are made in real time, e.g., by a special purpose computer software system which (in some preferred embodiments) includes a custom computing device, such as a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a microcontroller, a general purpose processor, a processor, a microprocessor, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), or (in other preferred embodiments) includes a remote access to a system server over a network; one or more computing dynamic pricing algorithms; a system database (local or remote) storing food cost data, nutritional data, and menu item information; and a user interface (i.e., user terminal). In some embodiments, the user interface may include a remote and/or mobile device, such as a mobile smartphone, tablet, or laptop computer, having user screen display fields or other features for customer-user input, choice, or otherwise selection of desired price, size, caloric content, and/or nutritional content of a food menu item, and for displaying a corresponding recipe. The customer-user input may be achieved by typing, clicking, electronic/virtual buttons, voice command, selecting pre-determined (provided) choices, or otherwise providing an electronic input of information to the system. In some embodiments, food menu item modifications inputs are received by the system, processed by the system, and a corresponding price is prepared and displayed by the system onto the user interface.
From the data-base data entered by customer-user, the system can respond to a customer-user food item nutrient inquiry and provide a nutrient intake listing of food item ingredient specification. This data information can aid a customer-user that desires to see what nutrients are lacking or are excessive m a continuous run of food item ordering and data collection.
In some embodiments, configuration adjustments and/or pricing, may be made m real time, e.g., using a point of sale system or online server-based system. In other embodiments, menu adjustments may be pre-processed and provided, for example, on a lookup table, cache or spreadsheet.
In some embodiments, a “light” version of a menu item may be ordered, e.g., a lower priced and/or healthier version, wherein the recipe or composition of the item and corresponding price are adjusted. In some embodiments, one or more “tiers” or versions may be pre-defined or pre-processed to provide desired recipes and corresponding prices, e.g., to adjust size of a food item (e.g., sandwich, ice-cream), the amount of food items (meat, vegetables, condiments, ice-cream type) or overall nutritional contents. In some embodiments, the composition of the food item may be dynamically calculated and adjusted in response to a price the customer-user is willing to pay and meet the intake nutritional properties desired by the customer-user. In some embodiments, other alternative menu items are pre-programmed or predefined, including alternative pricing and recipes/composition.
These as well as other aspects and advantages will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art, by reading the following detailed description with reference where appropriate to the accompanying drawings. Furthermore, it should be understood that the embodiments described in this overview and elsewhere are intended to be examples only and do not necessarily limit the scope of this invention.
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{circumflex over (x)}=argmax g(x, L)
subject to:
∀i∈S: xi=0
∀i∈S, 1≤xi≤Mi,
x∈HL∩Hx
T+fc(x, C)≤
for comparison to the customer-user input entries. If no option is selected in step 1601, a return step “R” is processed, and system returns the customer-user to a previous menu or application page. A Price Matrix PR is used in this process to quickly compare any pricing bounds input by the customer-user 1606. Also the cost Matrix C may be scanned for a pre-existing close match. A food menu item matching or within the bounds set by the customer-user found in Matrix A (either pre-existing or modified using the system processes described above) will be displayed to the customer-user at step 1603. The displayed options allow for the customer-user to approve or reject the options at step 1604. If rejected at step 1601, a return step “R” is processed, and system returns the customer-user to a previous menu or application page. If approved, the customer-user may enter how many items are desired, a modified food menu item is created (MOD), and a price ticket is generated by the system at step 1605. The system program will then return the display for a new customer-user or entry.
Now referring to
Examples of methods of using such systems, including implementing algorithms and interacting with a POS system and customer-users, to provide dynamic pricing of all or some items, are discussed in more details below.
Based on the following example, a total of n distinct ingredients are needed. For instance for
Restaurant (e.g., fast food) example: bread types, sauces, and dressing (for instance turkey, roast beef, lettuce, tomato, Italian bread, cheddar cheese, ranch, mayo, and so on).
Furthermore, assume that at the disposal, a minimal unit of each of those ingredients can be made or prepared in advance (e.g., one slice of turkey, one slice of roast beef and a small bag of lettuce, a small packet of mayo, one scoop of chocolate ice-cream, one tablespoon size fried-rice, one slice of banana, etc.). Let us denote x; where i ranges from one to n—recall n is the total number of items/ingredients—the number of minimal unit for the i-th ingredients in a given service (e.g., sandwich, ice-cream and son). For an example, assume that 1, 2, 3 and 4 correspond to predefined units of turkey, roast beef, meatloaf, and lettuce, respectively. Then, x1=2, x2=1, x3=0, x4=3 would correspond to 2 slices of turkey, one slice of roast beef, zero slices of meatloaf, and 3 small fixed-size bags of lettuce in this example. We can denote such configuration more compactly in a vector notation by
x:=[x1x2x3. . . xn]T=[2 1 0 3 0 0 . . . ]T in this example.
For our proposed framework and for each ingredient item, we need a bound depending on the owner desire (e.g., upper bound, average, median or other statistical bounds) for each of following type of information with a “good amount of confidence” (e.g., probability larger than 0.8/out of one) or some other measures (e.g., on average, typical, median, and so on). It should be clear that, this measure of confidence could be selected by the restaurant/retail owner and could be in other forms (e.g., for certain, i.e., a probability of one out of one, any other probability or other senses). Also, these confidence measures could be the same or different per each item without departing the context.
Ci: A selected (such as average, median, upper) bound of the price for the minimal unit of the i-th ingredient. Note that, this is the price that a restaurant buys that ingredient. For example, we know that (in our confidence sense, e.g., with a good probability 0.8 out of one or even for sure in other examples), the price for each roast beef slice would be at most 45 cents, considering the deviation in size and types of the roast beef Note that one can define a n×1 column vector C: =[C1C2 . . . Cn]T (where T denotes transpose operator). Note, that the retail could set the cost of some items, such as water, salt, pepper or anything he/she desires to zero, effectively making them free.
Pi: The profit, we want to have on the i-th ingredient. For example, a restaurant might pay Ci=50 cents, to buy the minimal unit of its i-th ingredient; however, the manager decides to sell the same ingredient 55 cents to his/her customer and hence the profit for that particular item will be Pi=5 cents. In summary, the customer will pay Ci+Pi for the minimal unit of the i-th ingredient. Clearly this profit could be any real value including zero (no profit) or even negative numbers (corresponding to loss, as being practiced in some chains). In a general case, one can find a function per ingredient, for instance Pi=fp; (Ci). This could range from constant term (e.g., fp; (Ci)=γi). linear (e.g., fp; (Ci)=αiCi+βi), higher order polynomials (e.g., fp
Li: The nutrients, including both macronutrients and micronutrients (e.g., vitamins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, water, proteins, etc.), and/or other properties of the minimal unit of the i-th ingredient. Note that, in the general case this might be a vector for each ingredient item as opposed to cost Ci and profit Pi which are scalars per ingredient item. For instance, without any loss of generality and without any importance of ordering, this vector could encode none, some or all of these main nutrient information for i-th ingredient
Please note that and as showed above, each of items listed above could be higher dimensional vectors themselves. For instance, fats could span either or both saturated, unsaturated fatty acids, both LDL and HDL. Vitamins could include A, B1, B2, E, K, and so on. In an extreme case, we can even separate different nutrient (minerals, carbohydrates, fat, minerals, water and proteins), from each ingredient to a different category, for instance we can have minerals from a particular meat and from a particular vegetable into different categories or categorize calories based on their qualities.
Finally each of these properties might have similar or different senses such as median, mean, maximum, minimum and so on. For instance, we use the average calorie but the maximum fat for the i-th ingredient.
As stated before, this Li could be a vector in general. Let us use as the length of this vector. In the following we use Li,j to denote the j-th entry of this vector where 1≤j≤
. In words, Li,j denotes the j-th property of the i-th ingredient. Finally concatenating all Li, we define L: =[L1TL2T . . . LnT]T. Indeed there could be other formulation for concatenation, for instance, putting each Li on one column of a matrix (e.g., L: =[L1L2 . . . Ln]) without departing the scope of this invention. However, for simplicity we adapt the first formulation.
T: Tax for the final food product and miscellaneous costs. Note that this parameter is a scalar and not a vector unlike previous parameters. Also, this tax might be different per food item type (e.g., to address the case that different price ranges could have different tax ratios). This could be a constant calculated offline, or calculated dynamically upon order based on the requested food item. The miscellaneous cost could be a fixed or additional charge to any sandwich for instance to consider the service, labor or other similar fees. However, for the simplicity and without any loss of generality, in the rest of this document, we refer to T simply as tax.). In the general tax model, we can write T=ftax(
Clearly, we can have other tax models in here (different price ranges, have different tax ratios and so on).
Mi: The maximum number of the i-th ingredient, the food service establishment will put in the food item. For instance, we know for certain that a roast beef sandwich (which is the k-th ingredient) would contain at most 8 slices of roast beef and hence in this case Mk=8. Define the vector M: =[M1M2 . . . Mn]T. In other example, we do not allow a sandwich to have more than 5 small packets of mayo and hence Ml=5 if the constant l corresponds to mayo. Also, in case of the fast food example and in case we support d discretization steps for the bread (e.g., d=4 for 4 bread sizes of 3, 6, 9, 12 inches) and if q corresponds to the bread, then we can write it as Mq=d=4.
Finally, we need an objective function g(·) on the desirability of food item/service configuration. This function could operate on nutrient (vitamins, carbohydrates, fat, minerals, water and proteins) and other properties of food items we offer, i.e. L and/or the vector x (recall that xi, the i-th entry of the vector x, denotes number of minimal unit of the i-th ingredient). An example of such desirability function could be
Where αi,j and bj are real-valued constants which could be set by owner for instance either by manually hand-setting, trial and error, training based on some data-sets or calculated by any other algorithm. Also constants αt,j might be functions of nutrient (vitamins, carbohydrates, fat, minerals, water and proteins) properties L as shown in the following special-case examples. We allow that j to be defined on “real-numbers” and hence terms of xiπ or 1/x and so on are supported as well. In the following, we propose some special cases of this general function.
we are performing a weighted sum of those nutrient values. A possible reason for such weighted sum could be to have different penalties/desirability for different nutritional properties. For instance, one might set a much higher penalty or less desirability for the total LDL compared to HDL by adjusting their corresponding weights λj. It should be clear that some or all weights λj could be equal in the given formulation.
Our approach (at a high level) is as follow: a customer-user enters a food service center (e.g., fast food, ice-cream shop, etc. . . . ), he/she states, enters, chooses, or otherwise selects his/her requirement in the food, including some or all nutrient (vitamins, carbohydrates, fat, minerals, water and proteins), volume, calorie, and price bounds. These requirements would be encoded to some constraints and then the food service would solve (locally, over internet, or finds it in a cache or from a lookup table) an optimization problem with the given constraints and make or return the requested, modified, or otherwise created food menu item based on the solution to that optimization problem. The objective function of such optimization problem could be the desirability function g(·) introduced in the previous section. We now formulate this process with more details. As before and for the simplicity of demonstration, here we focus on a fast-food example, though it should be clear that, this approach is extendable to other food services such as an ice-cream shop, ethnic restaurants, bakeries, caterers, and so on.
When a customer walks in to the food service center he/she will provide the following constraints:
In another example, assume that Ω={(j1, ≤, s1), (j2,≥, s2), . . . } then it means
As shown in
Given all inputs to the function fc described above, we define the optimal sandwich/food/item as the solution to the following optimization problem:
{circumflex over (x)}=argmax g(x, L)
subject to:
∀i∈S: xi=0
∀i∈S, 1≤xi≤Mi,
x∈HL∩Hx
T+fc(x, C)≤
As described above, the function g(·) is the desirability of the sandwich. Please note that, we considered costs as one of nutrient properties in L and hence, if desired by the service owner, the function g(·) could be a function of the price/cost or even tax. Also, we can change argmax to argmin depending on how g(·) is defined. It should be clear that one can solve the equivalent or some subset of this optimization problem without departing from this formulation, for instance by solving dual of this formulation or by including some subsets of the constraints in the formulation. Nevertheless, here we follow such general formulation for brevity as showing one embodiment of the disclosed invention.
Also, note that any of the constraints of (Formula I) which are not indicated by the user (e.g., optional entries in fc, could be removed from constraints or be replaced by some defaults).
Depending on function definitions for g(·), tax models ftax(
Even, for the second order example for g(·) in the previous example, it would be a constrained quadratic programming and could be solved by interior point, augmented Lagrangian, conjugate gradient and so on.
It should be noted that, even if based on the assumed models, we are dealing with a non-convex optimization problem, there exists many of-the-shelf non-convex solvers already available (like toolboxes provided by GOOGLE, MATLAB, gradient-descent, conjugate-gradient based, integer programming solvers, and so on).
Also, note that, the presented formulation could be either solved on-line for each customer-user or even we calculate all possible cases off-line and returned the results from a lookup table, cache or all processes to be done in a server.
If a lookup table or an integer programming solver is not deployed to the aforementioned optimization problem; then, the returned solution {circumflex over (x)}=[{circumflex over (x)}1{circumflex over (x)}2 . . . {circumflex over (x)}n]T would be most likely a real valued number with a fractions/decimals rather than an integer (for instance it might look like 2.3 slices of roast beef are required for a sandwich). Clearly, this is neither desirable nor practical from the franchise point of view. This can be solved by post processing the solution vector x, for instance, by flooring (rounding to the closest smaller integer). Indeed other strategies could be applied in this stage.
Finally, we need to discuss the corner cases, since no one is interested in having a foot-long sandwich that has only one slice of turkey! It could be easily verified that many of our introduced parameters have dependencies on each other; for instance, each of tax, bread price, calories and size shall influence the number of other ingredients that can be fitted inside a sandwich. One way to resolve this issue is forming a small lookup table to help the optimization stage in a pre-processing stage. For instance, let's assume that a customer-user walks in and asks for a chicken sandwich, costing at most $5, having at most 300 calories. Also assume that the tax rate is flat 10% in the state. Then, we know that the sandwich value must cost at most $4.95. Either by another algorithm, or by a look up table trained offline, we can find out that, a 6-inch piece of bread should be sufficient for the sandwich, and it will cost $1 for the franchise. Hence, all the ingredients cost should be less than $3.95. As a final note, due to preprocessing and post-processing, the cost of the sandwich could be less than $4.95, and hence the tax could be less than five cents as well. Hence, having the solution x, we need to re-calculate the price of the sandwich. Of course, there are cases where the solution to Formula I, is not feasible. For example, a customer-user might walk-in asking for a turkey sandwich, costing 1 cent, which is not feasible given the cost of food, in which case such requests may be discussed with the customer-user in the restaurant or store, and perhaps negotiated into a range where calculation is feasible or return the closest feasible solution or other policies.
Turning now to
If a requested menu item is feasible, e.g., within the desired profit parameters of the restaurant, then the system may perform pre-processing, e.g., to find a suitable bread size, and to set a minimum number of ingredients for instance by finding from a lookup table, cache, or deriving such number from the input parameters locally or send the information through internet to a server and receive results. After such pre-processing, the configuration and pricing of the ordered item may be calculated, by using algorithms and the methods described above, either locally, or by finding in a lookup table or cache, or send through internet to be calculated by a server and then receive the results. After such processing, or solving of equations/formulas, the results may be further processed (shown as “post-process”), e.g., to make the number of ingredients a realistic integer, if an integer programming solver or a look up table is not employed (e.g., to change 2.8 slices of turkey to 3 slices) and/or to force other desired constraints. Again the post processing step could be either through local calculation, lookup table, cache or through internet. The resulting composition of ingredients for a requested item may then be used to recalculate the price and complete the order, for example as shown in
The terms “comprising.” “including.” and “having.” as used in the claims and specification herein, shall be considered as indicating an open group that may include other elements not specified. The terms “a,” “an,” and the singular forms of words shall be taken to include the plural form of the same words, such that the terms mean that one or more of something is provided. The term “one” or “single” may be used to indicate that one and only one of something is intended. Similarly, other specific integer values, such as “two,” may be used when a specific number of things is intended. The terms “preferably.” “preferred,” “prefer,” “optionally,” “may,” and similar terms are used to indicate that an item, condition or step being referred to is an optional (not required) feature of the invention.
The invention has been described with reference to various specific and preferred embodiments and techniques. However, it should be understood that many variations and modifications may be made while remaining within the spirit and scope of the invention. It will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that methods, devices, device elements, materials, procedures, and techniques other than those specifically described herein can be applied to the practice of the invention as broadly disclosed herein without resort to undue experimentation. All art-known functional equivalents of methods, devices, device elements, materials, procedures and techniques described herein are intended to be encompassed by this invention. Whenever a range is disclosed, all subranges and individual values are intended to be encompassed. This invention is not to be limited by the embodiments disclosed, including any shown in the drawings or exemplified in the specification, which are given by way of example and not of limitation.
The systems and methods of the present disclosure, including components thereof, can comprise, consist of, or consist essentially of the essential elements and limitations of the embodiments described herein, as well as any additional or optional components or limitations described herein or otherwise useful.
As used herein, the term “about,” when referring to a value or to an amount of mass, weight, time, volume, concentration or percentage is meant to encompass variations of in some embodiments±20%, in some embodiments±10%, in some embodiments±5%, in some embodiments±1%, in some embodiments±0.5%, and in some embodiments±0.1% from the specified amount, as such variations are appropriate to perform the disclosed method.
As used herein, ranges can be expressed as from “about” one particular value, and/or to “about” another particular value. It is also understood that there are a number of values disclosed herein, and that each value is also herein disclosed as “about” that particular value in addition to the value itself For example, if the value “10” is disclosed, then “about 10” is also disclosed. It is also understood that each unit between two particular units are also disclosed. For example, if 10 and 15 are disclosed, then 11, 12, 13, and 14 are also disclosed.
While the invention has been described with respect to a limited number of embodiments, those skilled in the art, having benefit of this disclosure, will appreciate that other embodiments can be devised which do not depart from the scope of the invention as disclosed herein. Accordingly, the scope of the invention should be limited only by the attached claims.
All references throughout this application, for example patent documents including issued or granted patents or equivalents, patent application publications, and nonpatent literature documents or other source material, are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties, as though individually incorporated by reference, to the extent each reference is at least partially not inconsistent with the disclosure in the present application (for example, a reference that is partially inconsistent is incorporated by reference except for the partially inconsistent portion of the reference).
This application claims priority to, and is a divisional of, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/747,556 titled ‘SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DYNAMIC PRICING OF FOOD ITEMS’ and filed on Jan. 25, 2018. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/747,556 is a U.S. national phase application of International Application No. PCT/US2016/056136, filed Oct. 7, 2016, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/238,520 to Abdolreza Abdolhosseini Moghadam and Sara Sohrabi filed on Oct. 7, 2015. Each of the above-identified applications are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| Parent | 15747556 | US | |
| Child | 17248170 | US |
