Open data experts at the University of Southampton have cooked up a recipe for success in solving a key problem for the institution’s catering service.

EU legislation introduced last December now requires food businesses to provide allergy information on food sold unpackaged including meals served across the many catering outlets like those provided by Southampton’s University Catering Service. The Service has previously provided very broad information about the ingredients in meals by posting a spreadsheet on the wall in food outlets and making details available at cash tills. This information listed whether meals were suitable for vegan or vegetarian diets, contained alcohol or nuts and dairy free.

But Dr Ash Smith, the member of the University’s iSolutions team responsible for Southampton’s linked open data, has found a way of turning a more detailed spreadsheet listing specific allergens into an online menu automatically each day. The result is a new daily menu which provides students, staff and visitors of the University an easy to use and accessible menu online and ‘at source’ in more than a dozen food outlets which features all ingredients and potential allergens.

“I always worry that in a lot of organisations publishing Open Data could be seen as a chore by many members of staff, particularly as doing so has very few tangible benefits,” said Dr Smith. “Thankfully, the University Catering Service saw the potential of Open Data, and together we’ve created a mutually beneficial relationship in which we get access to information that we can publish, and in return Catering have a useful and innovative system that not only makes their jobs easier, but allows them to offer a better service to their customers.”

For James Leeming, the University’s Retail Catering Manager, the new system solves both an operational and legislative headache. It also ensures that the Southampton catering service remains a step ahead of other institutions in the way that open data is used to provide a better service for the thousands of customers served each day at the University across four campus sites in two cities.

“We’ve already been working with our open data colleagues over the last two years to capture and provide a great deal of information about our catering service including our opening hours, the cost and availability of various items and the menus but not the ingredients,” said Leeming. “Using open data to capture and reflect information about potential allergens in the food we serve also creates greater transparency between the Service and our customers and presents a logical refinement in helping to improve our processes.”

“It also means that our chefs, who display incredible individual flair in preparing meals each day, don’t need to have a PhD in computer science to put together and publish their menus,” Leeming continued.

The Southampton University Catering Service open data-sourced menus are available online and updated daily at http://catering.southampton.ac.uk/retail.

.