Don’t itch. Just tap.
While it’s not supposed to be equivalent to an EpiPen, the creators of Second Waiter – an app that weeds out potentially allergic items on menu items from 300 North American restaurant chains – hope people will keep the technology in their back pocket as an added tool.
“There are 15 different allergies – from peanuts to soy to wheat,” said Richard Green, one of the inventors of the app. “We’ve had requests for things we didn’t even think of, like coconut oil and strawberries. We’re a tool in a list of things to do when you eat at a restaurant.”
The app launched in February with just over 1,000 users. The idea is to have up-to-date information on menus so diners can narrow down dishes they can eat based on their allergies.
The top eight food categories Second Waiter flags when it comes to scanning through menus include fish, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, soy and wheat.
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration has warned any restaurant chain with over 20 locations to re-check their menu labelling to ensure they are making their information available to the public.
“What’s happening is restaurants are so busy being compliant they’re not presenting (menus) in a meaningful way to guests,” said Green. “They’d give you a brochure and you have to go line-by-line or you go online and they have a PDF file that you have to download on your phone and zoom in and zoom out. It’s painstaking.”
