Consumer Restaurant Allergen Filter App That Works at Any Restaurant
Existing allergen menu solutions like AllergyMenu.app are restaurant-facing B2B tools requiring restaurant adoption. Diners with food allergies, celiac disease, or dietary restrictions have no universal consumer app that can scan a QR menu or take a photo of a physical menu and filter items by their allergen profile. UMA (Universal Meal Assistant) is the closest but is very new with limited coverage. Fig is a grocery scanner only, not restaurant-capable.
The B2B approach (convince restaurants to adopt your platform) is a dead end for a startup. The winning approach is consumer-first: take a photo of any menu, use AI to identify dishes and likely ingredients, flag allergen risks. You'll be wrong sometimes, so frame it as a risk assessment tool, not a guarantee. The celiac community is fiercely loyal and will spread a good tool by word of mouth.
landscape (4 existing solutions)
The allergen filtering market is split between B2B tools (requiring restaurant adoption) and consumer grocery scanners (wrong use case). No consumer app can universally work at any restaurant by scanning its menu. AI vision + LLM technology now makes it feasible to photograph a menu and cross-reference ingredients against an allergen profile.