JP2000222476A - Food material managing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To sufficiently and efficiently use food material possessed and to prevent the fail of cooking caused by the lack of food materials by comparing the food material information of cooking information with the information on owned food materials, extracting lacked food materials and ordering the extracted food materials. SOLUTION: This device is composed of an input means 10 for fetching the cooking information provided through a television or the internet, a storage means 11 for storing that information and a lacked food material extracting means 15 for comparing required food materials with owned food materials and extracting the lacked food materials and the quantity thereof, etc. First of all, a user selects the desired cooking on a customer terminal 1. Concerning the selected cooking, it is compared with food materials preserved in a refrigerator at present and the lacked food materials and the quantity thereof are extracted. The extracted lacked food materials are ordered to a retail shop selected by an ordering means 15. The retail shop receives the food materials ordered from the customer terminal 1 and arranges these food materials and that retail shop delivers them to the ordering person. After the ordering person receives the food materials, the settlement of account is performed through a line network by bank accounting while using an account settling means 16 of the customer terminal 1.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a food management apparatus for supporting cooking using an information line.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art This kind of prior art is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-960.
No. 35, it is described. This is a cooking assistance system comprising: input means for inputting menu information of a dish or foodstuff; and transmission means for transmitting menu information input and determined from the input means to a service center via an information line. . The operation of this configuration is such that a menu search is performed when a menu is determined, menu information on the menu determined at that time is automatically transmitted to a service center, and menu search and menu ordering can be performed simultaneously.

[0003]

By the way, when placing an order, for example, a general household has a refrigerator, and the food materials stored in the refrigerator must be used effectively.

However, in the above-described system, since all the ingredients described in the searched menu information are ordered, there is no need to place an order in consideration of the owned ingredients.
Not suitable for actual use.

[0005]

An automatic foodstuff ordering apparatus according to the present invention has an input means for inputting cooking information, a storage means for storing the cooking information input by the input means, and a storage means for storing the cooking information. Selecting means for selecting a desired recipe from the cooking information; insufficient food extracting means for comparing the food information of the cooking information selected by the selecting means with the owned food information to extract the insufficient food; Ordering means for ordering to purchase the foodstuff extracted by the foodstuff extracting means.

[0006] Further, there is provided information adding means for adding at least the number of people information to the cooking information selected by the selecting means, and the insufficient food extracting means extracts the insufficient food in consideration of the information added by the information adding means. , Is also calculated.

[0007] The ordering means may include an ordering supplier extracting section for extracting an ordering party according to the missing ingredients, and an ordering party presenting information on the ordering party selected by the ordering party selecting section and the ordering party. A presenting part, a supplier selecting part for actually selecting the supplier from the suppliers presented by the supplier presenting part, and a shortage calculated by the insufficient ingredient extracting means at least for the supplier selected by the supplier selecting part. And an ordering unit for ordering the quantity.

[0008] Further, the shortage food extracting means manages and stores storage information including at least the type and amount of food stored in the refrigerator, the storage information stored in the storage management unit, and the selection. A comparison extraction unit that extracts missing ingredients by comparing with the dish information selected by the means.

Further, there is provided information adding means for additionally inputting at least the currently held food information, wherein the insufficient food extracting means compares the food information inputted from the information adding means with the cooking information selected by the selecting means. And a comparison extraction unit for extracting insufficient ingredients.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

In FIG. 1, 1 is a consumer terminal installed in the home, 2 is a television installed in the home, 3 is a refrigerator, 4 is at least information on the price, quality, freshness, etc. of the foods held by the retail store. Is a management server having a retail information DB 5 for storing the information.

Reference numeral 6 denotes a terminal installed in the retail store A, 7 denotes a terminal installed in the retail store B, and 8 denotes a terminal installed in the bank.

Reference numeral 9 denotes a network consisting of a wide area network (WAN) connecting the terminals and servers or a public telephone line.

In FIG. 2, reference numeral 10 denotes an information input means which is connected to the television 2 or the network 9 and takes in the cooking information of the cooking program of the television 2 or the cooking information obtained via the Internet;
11 is a storage means for storing the cooking information taken in by the information input means, 12 is an information adding means for adding information such as, for example, the number of people to cook and date and time of meal to the information taken in by the information input means, 13 Are selection means for the user to select desired information from the cooking information stored in the storage means 11;
4 is a shortage food extraction means for comparing the foodstuffs and the quantity held in the refrigerator based on the dish information selected by the selection means 13 and the information added by the information addition means 12 and extracting the shortage ingredients and the quantity thereof; Ordering means for ordering the shortage food extracted by the shortage food extraction means 14 to a retail store via the network 9;
Reference numeral 16 denotes settlement means for performing bank settlement with a retail store through the bank 8 after ordering by the ordering means, 17 denotes display means such as a CRT, 18 denotes operation means for manual input such as a keyboard, and 19 denotes operation means for manual input. Control means for controlling the consumer terminal 1.

The deficient food extracting means 14 includes a storage management unit 141 for managing the food information including the types and amounts of the food materials held in the refrigerator 3, and a food information and selection means 13 for managing the food information managed by the storage management unit 141. And a comparison and extraction unit 142 for comparing the material list of the cooking information selected in the above and the information added by the information adding unit 12 to extract the missing ingredients and their amounts.

Each time the user puts the purchased food into the refrigerator 3, the storage management unit 141 inputs the amount together with the amount of the food, and subtracts the amount used during cooking each time the comparison extraction unit 141 extracts the amount. Management. In addition, it is configured such that the user can manually deduct the usage fee.

Further, the ordering means 15 extracts the name of the retail store of the ordering party and its retail information from the retail information in the retail database 5 of the management server 4 in accordance with the lacking ingredients extracted by the lacking ingredient extracting means 14. An extraction unit 151 and a supplier presenting unit 152 that presents the relevant information such as the retail store name extracted by the supplier extraction unit 151 and its retail price and freshness.
And a supplier selection unit 15 for selecting a retail store to be actually ordered from a plurality of retail stores presented by the supplier presentation unit 152.
And an ordering section 154 for ordering at least the shortage calculated by the shortage food extracting means 14 to the retailer selected by the ordering section selecting section 153.

The general operation of the entire configuration shown in FIG. 2 will be described with reference to FIG.

First, in step S1, the user selects a desired dish on the consumer terminal 1, and in the dish selected in step S2, compares it with the ingredients currently held in the refrigerator, and extracts the missing ingredients together with the quantity. . In step S3, the missing ingredients extracted in step S2 are ordered from the retailer selected by the ordering means 15. In step S4, the retailer receives an order for the ingredients ordered from the consumer terminal 1, arranges the ingredients, and in step S5, the retailer delivers the ingredients to the orderer. In step S6, after the orderer receives the food, the settlement means 16 of the consumer terminal 1 performs the bank settlement online instead of paying the charge via the line network 9. The user prepares the dish selected in step S1 using the ingredients obtained as described above.

The operation of the consumer terminal 1 among the above operations will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

The basic operation of the consumer terminal 1 is an operation of repeatedly executing steps 10 to S13 described later.

First, in step S10, it is confirmed whether or not the user inputs information. When the information is input, the operation is performed by the operation unit 18, and the process proceeds to step S15. Desired cooking information, that is, cooking procedure information and used food information, are stored in the storage means 11 from the Internet. If it is not desired to input information in step S10, the process automatically proceeds to step S11 unless the operation means 18 is operated.

In step S11, it is confirmed whether or not the user wants to view the cooking information. If the user wants to see the cooking information, the operation proceeds to step S16. Step S
At 16, the user selects a desired dish from the storage means 11 by the selection means 13. Specifically, the selection unit 13 lists the dish names stored in the storage unit 11 on the display unit 17 and selects a desired dish name with the operation unit 18.

In step S 17, additional information such as when to cook and how many people to make is input to the information adding means 12 via the operating means 18 in the selected cooking information.
In step S18, the missing food extracting unit 14 extracts the missing food and the shortage thereof based on the information in steps S16 and S17.

More specifically, the comparison and extraction unit 142 compares the food information of the storage management unit 141 with step S16 and step S16.
The information of 17 is compared, and the name of the missing ingredient and the quantity of the missing ingredient are calculated and extracted. At this time, the food use fee extracted by the comparison extraction unit 142 is subtracted from the amount of foodstuffs managed by the storage management unit 141.

In step S19, it is confirmed whether or not there are missing ingredients as a result of the extraction in step S18. If it is confirmed that there is no missing ingredient, the process moves to step S20 and is registered in the selected list in the storage means 11.

When it is confirmed in step S19 that there is a shortage of ingredients, the process proceeds to step S21 to perform an ordering operation.

More specifically, a retail store that handles the ingredients based on the missing ingredients, for example, the retail store A6 or the retail store B
7 and the like are extracted from the retail database 5 of the management server, and their prices and freshness are displayed on the display means 17 in a list. The user operates the operation means 1 from the display list.
Select in step 8 to specify the supplier. And the operating means 18
The order is made to the retail store via the line network 9 by the operation described above.

Thereafter, the flow shifts to step S22, where the information is registered in the hold list in the storage means 11.

After the order of the missing ingredients in the above-mentioned operation of step S21, when the missing ingredients arrive from the retail store, the user pays the ordered ingredients to the retail shop. In this operation, first, the settlement operation is confirmed in step S12, and the process proceeds to step S23. In step S23, it is checked whether the delivered material is as ordered or not defective. Then, instead of paying the money in step S24, the settlement means 16 performs settlement via the bank. Step S
At 25, it is determined whether or not the missing ingredients of the dish have been prepared based on the ingredients delivered from the retail store. If the missing ingredients are available, the list is changed from the reserved list in the storage means 11 to the selected list.

After the shortage material is delivered from the retail store, it is checked in step S13 whether or not the user has performed an operation to see the procedure when actually cooking. Step S1
After confirming the operation of viewing the procedure in step 3, the process proceeds to step S27. In step S27, a dish whose cooking procedure is to be displayed is selected from the selected list in the storage means 11.
Then, in step S28, the procedure of the selected dish is displayed on the display means 17.

As described above, the user starts cooking at a desired time, and the user can watch the display without knowing the procedure, so that the user's repertoire can be expanded, and when cooking, the user can use no ingredients. Failure and dissatisfaction can be avoided.

In the above-described embodiment, the missing food extracting means 14 manages the foods stored in the refrigerator 3, compares the managed foods with the foods necessary for cooking, and orders the missing foods. However, the present invention is not limited to this. The currently owned ingredients are input from the information adding unit 12, and the input ingredients and the ingredients required for cooking are compared by the comparison extraction unit 141 of the insufficient ingredient extraction unit 14, and the insufficient ingredients are extracted. You may extract and place an order.

More specifically, the consumer terminal 1 does not include the storage management unit 142 of the shortage food extracting means 14 shown in FIG. Then, the operation of the comparison and extraction unit 141 performs an operation of comparing the possessed ingredients input from the information adding means 12 with the ingredients required for cooking, and extracting insufficient ingredients.

Further, in step S17 of the operation flowchart of FIG. 4, in addition to the additional information of the day of cooking and the number of people, the ingredients and the amount to be held are input. In step S18, the input ingredients are compared with ingredients necessary for cooking, and an operation of extracting missing ingredients is performed.

With the above operation, it is possible to construct a system for ordering ingredients without managing the ingredients stored in the refrigerator 3 and in consideration of ingredients other than the refrigerator 3.

[0037]

According to the present invention, it is possible to make full use of the foodstuffs possessed and to prevent cooking failure due to shortage of foodstuffs.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of a consumer terminal of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an operation flowchart of the entire system of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the consumer terminal of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Consumer terminal 10 Information input means 11 Storage means 12 Information addition means 13 Selection means 14 Insufficient ingredient extraction means 15 Ordering means

Claims (5)

[Claims] An input unit for inputting cooking information, a storage unit for storing the cooking information input by the input unit, and a selecting unit for selecting a desired recipe from the cooking information stored in the storage unit. A deficient ingredient extracting means for comparing the ingredient information of the cooking information selected by the selecting means with the possessed ingredient information to extract the missing ingredients, and to purchase the ingredients extracted by the insufficient ingredient extracting means. A foodstuff management device comprising: an ordering means for placing an order. 2. An information adding means for adding at least the number of people information to the cooking information selected by the selecting means, wherein the insufficient food extracting means extracts the insufficient food in consideration of the information added by the information adding means. The foodstuff management device according to claim 1, wherein the shortage amount is also calculated. 3. The ordering means, comprising: a supplier extracting unit for extracting a supplier according to the missing ingredients; and a supplier that presents the supplier selected by the supplier selector and related information of the supplier. A presenting part, a supplier selecting part for actually selecting the supplier from the suppliers presented by the supplier presenting part, and a shortage calculated by the insufficient ingredient extracting means at least for the supplier selected by the supplier selecting part. The foodstuff management device according to claim 2, further comprising an ordering unit for ordering an amount. 4. A storage management unit that manages and stores storage information including at least the type and amount of food stored in the refrigerator, the storage information stored by the storage management unit, and the selection. The foodstuff management device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, further comprising: a comparison extraction unit configured to extract missing foodstuffs by comparing with the dish information selected by the means. 5. An information adding means for additionally inputting at least the currently held food information, wherein said insufficient food extracting means compares the food information inputted from said information adding means with the food information selected by said selecting means. 2. The food management apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a comparison extraction unit configured to extract insufficient food ingredients.