Guideline-Based Food Purchase Management

Abstract

Techniques for guideline-based food purchase management are provided. The techniques include generating a personalized set of nutrition guidelines for a user, generating a user profile for the user, wherein the user profile comprises health information and nutrition preferences, and using the personalized set of nutrition guidelines and the user profile to generate a guideline-based shopping list for the user. Techniques for generating location-based food purchase guidance are also provided. The techniques include obtaining a shopping list of food items and a list of stores to be considered in connection with the food items on the shopping list, using the shopping list, list of stores, a store location map and inter-store routing guidance to generate an inter-store shopping route, and generating an in-store shopping route, for each of the stores in the inter-store shopping route, based on the shopping list, intra-store routing guidance and a floor plan for the store.

1 . A method for guideline-based food purchase management, wherein the method comprises:
 generating a personalized set of one or more nutrition guidelines for a user;   generating a user profile for the user, wherein the user profile comprises health information and one or more nutrition preferences; and   using the personalized set of one or more nutrition guidelines and the user profile to generate a guideline-based shopping list for the user.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein generating a personalized set of one or more nutrition guidelines and generating a user profile comprise using Web-enabled questionnaires to collect and assess information pertaining to the user. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein generating a personalized set of one or more nutrition guidelines further comprises using an assessment of the information to select an appropriate set of one or more nutrition guidelines from a nutrition guideline repository. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein generating a user profile further comprises using an assessment of the information and the appropriate set of one or more nutrition guidelines to generate the user profile. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein using the personalized set of one or more nutrition guidelines and the user profile to generate a guideline-based shopping list comprises using information pertaining to availability of one or more selected food markets based on the personalized set of one or more nutrition guidelines. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein using the personalized set of one or more nutrition guidelines and the user profile to generate a guideline-based shopping list comprises accessing a food market supply list repository and dividing candidate food into one or more categories such that food in a same category is interchangeable. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein generating the guideline-based shopping list further comprises using additional user input pertaining to at least one of user budget, travel distance of one or more stores, user preference of one or more stores, and available coupons from one or more stores. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein generating the guideline-based shopping list further comprises facilitating a user to interactively select one or more items to purchase, and updating a food compliance report in real-time and providing one or more food suggestions to the user based on the one or more selected items. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein updating a food compliance report in real-time comprises using a nutrition fact calculator to compute a total nutrition fact based on the one or more selected items and input from a nutrition fact database. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein using the personalized set of one or more nutrition guidelines and the user profile to generate a guideline-based shopping list comprises accessing a food market supply list repository and filtering out one or more foods that are not suitable for the user. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method for guideline-based food purchase management is implemented on a handheld mobile device. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising providing a system, wherein the system comprises one or more distinct software modules, each of the one or more distinct software modules being embodied on a tangible computer-readable recordable storage medium, and wherein the one or more distinct software modules comprise a guideline manager module, a profile manager module and a shopping list manager module executing on a hardware processor. 
     
     
         13 . A method for generating location-based food purchase guidance, wherein the method comprises:
 obtaining a shopping list of one or more food items and a list of one or more stores to be considered in connection with the one or more food items on the shopping list;   using the shopping list, list of one or more stores, a store location map and inter-store routing guidance to generate an inter-store shopping route; and   generating an in-store shopping route, for each of the one or more stores in the inter-store shopping route, based on the shopping list of one or more food items, intra-store routing guidance and a floor plan for the store.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising obtaining one or more user preferences in connection with the one or more stores. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein generating an in-store shopping route further comprises using one or more user preferences in connection with the intra-store guidance. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising alerting a user of shopping information based on locations of the user. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising using a user-scanned barcode of an item during shopping, via a barcode-based shopping cart tracker module, to check price and one or more nutrition facts of the item. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein using a user-scanned barcode of an item during shopping further comprises tracking a total cost of one or more selected items. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 17 , further comprising using the barcode-based shopping cart tracker module during checkout to provide a shopping cart list to a checkout assistant module along with any coupons to be used to verify if the checkout is correct. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein using a user-scanned barcode of an item during shopping to check one or more nutrition facts of the item comprises tracking real-time nutrition compliance for a user. 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein using a user-scanned barcode of an item during shopping to check one or more nutrition facts of the item comprises using the one or more nutrition facts of the item to suggest a substitute item. 
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising providing a system, wherein the system comprises one or more distinct software modules, each of the one or more distinct software modules being embodied on a tangible computer-readable recordable storage medium, and wherein the one or more distinct software modules comprise an inter-store planner module and an intra-store planner module executing on a hardware processor.