Patent ID: 8504196

Claim:
A system for dispensing a customised serving which comprises: an ingredient storage module, an ingredient processing module, a serving dispenser, a user interface, a formulation database containing an inventory of ingredients stored in the storage module and potential servings to be formulated therefrom, the ingredients associated with one or more nutritional components, and a controller, operatively linked to the storage module, the processing module, the dispenser, the interface and the database; the controller being programmed: i) to interrogate a user through the interface to make a serving selection, and to receive the selection made, ii) to interrogate the database to determine a serving recipe that best approximates the customer selection, iii) to determine the total quantity of one or more nutritional components within the serving recipe at least partly from a product of matrices representing the respective nutritional components and quantities of the ingredients within the determined recipe; iv) to present the recipe and nutritional component(s) as determined to the user through the interface with the options of accepting or refining the user selection, v) if the user chooses the refining option to repeat steps (i) to (iv), and vi) if the user chooses the accepting option, to actuate the processing module to prepare, and the serving dispenser to dispense a serving prepared from the accepted serving recipe.