System and method for household grocery management
First Claim
1. A method for household grocery management, comprising:
- maintaining a current grocery inventory for a household using a bar code scanner to scan new and used grocery items;
comparing the current grocery inventory to a list of desired groceries;
determining shortages based upon comparing the current grocery inventory to the list of desired groceries;
generating a replenishment list in response to the determined shortages;
sending the replenishment list to a grocery clearing house across a communications network, the grocery clearing house servicing a plurality of grocery stores;
storing a plurality of recipes which each include at least one ingredient; and
receiving a request to initiate automatic meal analysis, wherein the meal analysis includes the steps of;
comparing the grocery inventory to the ingredients of the stored recipes;
suggesting meals in response to the comparing step, wherein the suggested meals are based on selected said recipes;
identifying ingredients from the selected recipes which are absent from the grocery inventory; and
adding the absent ingredients to the replenishment list.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system for h household grocery management is provided. The system includes a bar code scanner (22) operable to scan a bar code on a grocery item and to provide bar code data obtained thereby. The system also includes a computer system (20) coupled to receive the bar code data provided by the bar code scanner (22). The computer system (20) has a fixed data storage storing a grocery inventory (26) and a processor executing a grocery management application (24). The grocery management application (24) operates to process the bar code data to identify a scanned grocery item, to maintain the grocery inventory (26), and to generate a replenishment list (32) of grocery items based upon differences between current grocery inventory (26) and defined full levels for the household (10).
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Citations
9 Claims
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1. A method for household grocery management, comprising:
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maintaining a current grocery inventory for a household using a bar code scanner to scan new and used grocery items;
comparing the current grocery inventory to a list of desired groceries;
determining shortages based upon comparing the current grocery inventory to the list of desired groceries;
generating a replenishment list in response to the determined shortages;
sending the replenishment list to a grocery clearing house across a communications network, the grocery clearing house servicing a plurality of grocery stores;
storing a plurality of recipes which each include at least one ingredient; and
receiving a request to initiate automatic meal analysis, wherein the meal analysis includes the steps of;
comparing the grocery inventory to the ingredients of the stored recipes;
suggesting meals in response to the comparing step, wherein the suggested meals are based on selected said recipes;
identifying ingredients from the selected recipes which are absent from the grocery inventory; and
adding the absent ingredients to the replenishment list. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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Specification