Recipe generating methods and systems

• US 20070141540A1
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Published: 06/21/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Cargill, Inc. (Agricultural Services Division)
• Original Assignee: Cargill, Inc. (Agricultural Services Division)
• Inventors: Borg, Scott
• Application Number:
  US10/558,546
• Publication Number:
  US 20070141540A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 434/127
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/00 Teaching not covered by other main groups of this subclass teaching or practice apparatus for gun-aiming or gun-laying F41G3/26

Abstract

The methods and systems for generating recipes are disclosed. One aspect of the invention is directed toward a method for generating a recipe that includes receiving a request for a recipe recommendation, collecting customer information, and providing a recipe based on the customer information, a defined promotional strategy, or relationship between the purchase of selected food items. Further aspects of the invention can include providing a list of food items related to the recipe, generating a store map with the location of food items, providing discount incentives for food items related to the recipe, and generating a shopping sequence for collecting food items related to the recipe.

Claims

1. A method for generating a recipe, comprising:

comparing a customer profile of a customer to a defined promotional strategy; and

providing a recipe to the customer based on the comparison of the customer profile and the defined promotional strategy.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

collecting customer information from the customer;

generating a customer profile based on the collected customer information and storing the generated customer profile in a database.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein providing the recipe includes providing at least one recipe that includes food items for at least one of a single dish and an entire meal.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing the customer with a list of food items associated with the recipe.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the list of food items comprises a list of pantry items and a list of need-to-buy items based on the customer profile.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

accepting a list of additional shopping items from the customer; and

integrating the accepted list of additional shopping items with the list of need to buy items.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing the customer with a list of food items associated with the recipe; and

providing the customer with a list of suggested food items not associated with the recipe.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein providing the recipe includes providing multiple recipes, and wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a selection of one or more of the multiple recipes; and

providing a list of food items associated with the one or more selected recipes.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising storing at least one non-selected recipe and each non-selection occurrence as non-selected recipe records in a database, querying the non-selected recipe records in the database to determine how many times the non-selected recipe has been declined, and precluding the non-selected recipe from being offered again if the non-selection occurrence exceeds a predetermine number.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising downloading at least one of the recipe and a list of food items associated with the recipe to at least one of a computing system and a computer-readable medium.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising accepting customer rating of the provided recipe at a later date and updating the customer profile with the accepted customer rating.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the accepting customer rating comprises accepting customer rating via a web site, an in-store computing station, or a store attendant.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a store map with the location of the food items associated with the recipe, wherein the location of the food items are defined by categories.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

printing the map for the customer to use while shopping.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a shopping sequence for collecting the food items for the recipe based on the location of the food items in a store.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the promotional strategy includes suggesting recipes that includes one or more food items that are at least one of currently in stock, over-stocked, on sale, and targeted for increased sales.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the promotional strategy includes suggesting recipes that includes one or more food items that include a food staple.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein the promotional strategy includes according recipes with more ingredients higher priority than recipes with fewer ingredients.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein the promotional strategy includes according recipes that increase ancillary sales higher priority than recipes that do not increase ancillary sales.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a discount incentive for the customer to purchase at least one food item associated with the recipe, wherein the discount incentive is selected from the group consisting of a printed coupon, a gift card, and an electronic coupon.

21. The method of claim 1 wherein the customer profile is compared to the defined promotional strategy using a computing device.

22. The method of claim 1 wherein collecting customer information includes at least one of initial profiling by a store attendant, collecting information provided by a customer, and tracking items the customer buys.

23. The method of claim 22 wherein tracking the items the customer buys includes tracking what the customer buys over a period of time via at least one of the use of a customer affinity card and the redemption of one or more customer-specific discount incentives, and further comprises updating the customer profile with the tracked items either continuously or periodically.

24. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the provided recipe as one of a provided recipe records in a database, querying the provided recipe records when providing a new recipe, and precluding the previously provided recipe as a new recipe for a predetermined period of time.

25. The method of claim 1, wherein providing a recipe to the customer further comprises taking into consideration factors selected from the group consisting of season, holidays, weather, day of week, shopping time of day, and at least one operating schedule of at least one department in a store.

26. The method of claim 1, further comprising overriding the customer profile, and wherein comparing the customer profile to a defined promotional strategy comprises comparing a new customer profile to a defined promotional strategy.

27. The method of claim 1, wherein comparing the customer profile to a defined promotional strategy further comprises querying a recipe database having recipes with at least one binary identifier and one analog identifier, wherein the querying a recipe database comprises querying either according to at least one binary identifier prior to at least one analog identifier or according to at least one analog identifier prior to at least one digital identifier.

28. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying correlations between items based on the probability that if a customer buys a first item, the customer will also buy a second item, and wherein comparing the customer profile to a defined promotional strategy comprises comparing the customer profile, a defined promotional strategy, and the identified correlations.

29. The method of claim 1, further comprising defining a promotional strategy for increased sales.

30. The method of claim 29, further comprising:

(i) monitoring store sales while the promotional strategy is on going;

(ii) comparing monitored store sales with the defined promotional strategy; and

(iii) modifying the promotional strategy based on the comparison of monitored store sales with the current promotional strategy for increasing store sales.

31. The method of claim 30, further comprising repeating operations (i)-(iii) either continuously or periodically.

32. A system for generating a recipe, comprising:

a database storing customer profiles and recipes;

a processor generating at least one recipe based on the customer profiles and a defined promotional strategy, comprising;

a database module retrieving a customer profile from the database based on the collected customer information;

a comparison module comparing a customer profile of a customer to the defined promotional strategy; and

a recipe module providing a recipe to the customer based on the comparison of the customer profile and the defined promotional strategy.

33. The system of claim 32, further comprising:

an input module collecting customer information from the customer; and

a profile module generating a customer profile based on the collected customer information, and wherein the database module stores the generated customer profile in the database.

34. The system of claim 32, wherein the recipe module provides at least one recipe that includes food items for at least one of a single dish and an entire meal.

35. The system of claim 32, wherein the recipe module provides the customer with a list of food items associated with the recipe.

36. The system of claim 32, wherein the input module accepting a list of additional shopping items from the customer and the recipe module integrating the accepted list of additional shopping items with the list of need to buy items.

37. The system of claim 32, further comprising:

the recipe module providing the customer with a list of food items associated with the recipe and with a list of suggested food items not associated with the recipe.

38. The system of claim 32, wherein the recipe module provides multiple recipes, and wherein the method further comprises:

the input module receiving a selection of one or more of the multiple recipes; and

the recipe module providing a list of food items associated with the one or more selected recipes.

39. The system of claim 32, further comprising an output module downloading at least one of the recipes and a list of food items associated with the recipe to at least one of a computing system and a computer-readable medium.

40. The system of claim 32, further comprising a strategy module defining a promotional strategy for increased sales.

41. The system of claim 40, wherein the strategy module:

(i) monitors store sales while the promotional strategy is on going;

(ii) compares monitored store sales with the defined promotional strategy; and

(iii) modifies the promotional strategy based on the comparison of monitored store sales with the current promotional strategy for increasing store sales.

42. The system of claim 41, wherein the strategy module repeats operations (i)-(iii) either continuously or periodically.

43. A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions for performing steps to generate a recipe, the steps comprising:

retrieving a customer profile of a customer from a database based on collected customer information;

comparing the customer profile to the defined promotional strategy; and

providing a recipe to the customer based on the comparison of the customer profile and the defined promotional strategy.

46. The computer-readable medium of claim 46, the computer executable instructions further comprising the step of providing the customer with a list of food items associated with the recipe.

44. The computer-readable medium of claim 46, the computer executable instructions further comprising the steps of collecting customer information from the customer, generating a customer profile based on the collected customer information, and storing the generated customer profile in the database.

45. The computer-readable medium of claim 46, wherein the step of providing a recipe comprises providing at least one recipe that includes food items for at least one of a single dish and an entire meal.

47. The computer-readable medium of claim 46, the computer executable instructions further comprising the steps of accepting a list of additional shopping items from the customer and the recipe module integrating the accepted list of additional shopping items with the list of need to buy items.

48. The computer-readable medium of claim 46, the computer executable instructions further comprising:

the step of providing the customer with a list of food items associated with the recipe and with a list of suggested food items not associated with the recipe.

49. The computer-readable medium of claim 46, the computer executable instructions further comprising, wherein the step of providing a recipe provides multiple recipes, and wherein the computer executable instructions further comprises:

the step of receiving a selection of one or more of the multiple recipes; and

the step of providing a list of food items associated with the one or more selected recipes.

50. The computer-readable medium of claim 46, the computer executable instructions further comprising the step of downloading at least one of the recipes and a list of food items associated with the recipe to at least one of a computing system and a computer-readable medium.

51. The computer-readable medium of claim 46, the computer executable instructions further comprising steps for defining a promotional strategy for increased sales.

52. The computer-readable medium of claim 51, the computer executable instructions further comprising steps for:

(i) monitoring store sales while the promotional strategy is on going;

(ii) comparing monitored store sales with the defined promotional strategy; and

(iii) modifying the promotional strategy based on the comparison of monitored store sales with the current promotional strategy for increasing store sales.

53. The computer-readable medium of claim 52, the computer executable instructions further comprising steps for repeating operations (i)-(iii) either continuously or periodically.