This application is the U.S. National Phase application under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of International Application No. PCT/EP2017/060305, filed on Apr. 28, 2017, which claims the benefit of International Application No. PCT/CN2016/080557 filed Apr. 28, 2016 and International Application No. 16173127.8 filed Jun. 6, 2016. These applications are hereby incorporated by reference herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention relates to a method and apparatus for monitoring a consumer, and in particular for monitoring the ingestion of food and/or drink by a consumer.

BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION

Over-eating is the main cause of obesity. In some cases, people are not always consciously aware that they are eating more than their body requires on a daily basis. Often, when over-eating occurs the person does not realise it until there has been a substantial increase in their body weight, and it can be too late to make a small change to their eating habits and improve the situation.

However, with current food intake measuring solutions such as a manual food log, it would be difficult and inconvenient to accurately monitor the nutritional intake for each individual sharing different dishes with other people.

WO2015/084116 provides a food intake monitoring system that is effective for monitoring the food consumed by a single user from one or more receptacle.

From a nutrition/health monitoring and management perspective, it would be useful to be able to measure the food type/weight intake of each individual, in order to monitor the food intake of each meal, either for an individual or shared with others.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a dining system. The dining system comprises: at least one serving receptacle; an information processor and at least one utensil. Each utensil has an identifier. Each serving receptacle comprises a measuring system, for measuring an amount of food on the serving receptacle. Each serving receptacle has a reader for reading the identifier of any of said utensils that is brought to a position in which it can remove food from the serving receptacle. Each serving receptacle comprises a transmitter, for notifying the information processor of a change in the amount of food on the serving receptacle and of an identified utensil that is in a position in which it can remove food from the serving receptacle at a time of said change in the amount of food on the serving receptacle, and the information processor is configured for storing information relating to a total quantity of food removed from the serving receptacle by the identified utensil.

This dining system is therefore capable of distinguishing between different utensils and therefore between different users and to allocate the food removed from each plate to each different user.

The dining system may further comprise a camera for providing image data of food removed from the serving receptacle at a time of said change in the amount of food on the serving receptacle.

This allows the dining system to recognise the food removed by each user and therefore allows the system to attach nutritional values to the food removed by each utensil.

The information processor may be configured for receiving the image data, determining the type of food removed from the serving receptacle, and storing information relating to the type of food. The user is therefore able to obtain information relating to their food consumption.

The information processor may be cloud based, or locally positioned, or within a smart phone.

The information processor may transmit said information relating to a total quantity of food removed from the serving receptacle by the identified utensil to a user device, wherein the user device is linked to the identified utensil.

By linking the identified utensil to the user device, such as a smart phone, the user of both the device and the utensil may receive nutritional information about the food that they have removed with their specific utensil directly to their device.

In some embodiments, if the reader determines that an identified utensil is in a position in which it can remove food from the serving receptacle for a period of time that is shorter than a threshold time period, any food that is removed from the serving receptacle during this time period will be attributed to the actions of any other utensil identifier that is determined to be in a position in which it can remove food from the serving receptacle during this time period.

This avoids any false identifications of utensils which only came into range of a reader of a serving receptacle whilst passing over the receptacle without removing any food.

In some embodiments, if the reader determines that an identified utensil is in a position in which it can remove food from the serving receptacle for a period of time that is longer than a threshold time period, a change in the amount of food on the serving receptacle during this time is attributed to the utensil removing food from the serving receptacle.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a serving receptacle. The serving receptacle comprises a measuring system for measuring an amount of food on the serving receptacle; a reader for reading the identifiers of utensils that are brought to a position in which they can remove food from the receptacle; and a transmitter, for notifying an information processor of a quantity of food removed from the receptacle by an identified utensil.

The serving receptacle may be a plate. The reader may be located at the centre of the serving receptacle such that a recognition distance of the reader is the same as the radius of the serving receptacle.

According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a utensil comprising a unique identifier for identifying the utensil to a serving receptacle.

The utensil may comprise a visually distinct portion for use in measuring the size of the food being removed by said utensil.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method of monitoring individual food consumption in a group of consumers. The method comprises measuring an amount of food on a serving receptacle; if at least one utensil is used to remove food from the receptacle, wherein the at least one utensil has an identifier; reading the identifier of the at least one utensil; and determining the total weight of food removed from the serving receptacle by the at least one utensil.

The method may further comprise transmitting data relating to the total quantity of food removed from the serving receptacle to an information processor.

If at least two utensils are used to remove food from the receptacle at overlapping times, then the method further may further comprise the information processor estimating the weight of food taken by each utensil.

The estimating step may comprise calculating the size of the food removed by each utensil determining the density of the food removed by each utensil; and multiplying the size by the density to determine the weight of the food removed by each utensil respectively.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a computer program product comprising a computer readable medium having computer readable code embodied therein, the computer readable code being configured such that, on execution by a suitable computer or processor, the computer or processor performs the method as described above.

