We didn't set out to build allergen software.
We set out to answer a question that wouldn't go away. This is how that happened.
WHERE IT STARTED
It started on a first date with Mark and Hanna, in a Greek restaurant. Somewhere between ordering and the food arriving, Hanna explained her allergies: tree nuts, peanuts, shellfish, tropical fruit, and raw vegetables.
From that point on, every meal out followed the same routine. Hanna would take one side of the menu. Mark would take the other. They'd filter down the dishes that seemed safe based on the name and description. Then Hanna would speak with the server to confirm what they'd picked was actually fine.
It worked. Mostly. But the question that kept coming back was always the same: could they really trust the server, someone managing several tables at once, to accurately relay a long list of allergies to the kitchen? To know the ingredients in every dish, including seasonal substitutions? It seemed like an unnecessary risk. Particularly at restaurants where the food was complex enough to be genuinely unpredictable.
Every meal out, the same doubt. And from that doubt, a single question: how do we make this better?
THE GAP
The data exists. It just doesn't reach the table.
Here's the thing. This isn't just one couple's problem. It's a scene that plays out in restaurants across the country, every night. Someone with a food allergy sits down, scans the menu, and raises a hand. Can I eat this? And the server freezes. Not because they don't care. Because the allergen data is in a binder in the kitchen, or buried in a spreadsheet, or maybe it was updated last month but nobody's quite sure.
Every restaurant in the UK has allergen data. They have to by law. But having it and being able to use it are different things. The binder passes the inspection. It does not help the guest at table six who needs an answer in the next ten seconds.
That's the gap. Not a lack of information. A lack of access. Data that satisfies auditors but fails the moment a real person asks a real question.
THE INSIGHT
If you know the ingredients, you know the allergens.
What Hanna and Mark used to do by hand, scanning a menu, filtering for what's safe, that's what a system should do automatically. Not a one-size-fits-all allergy chart. A personal menu. Your allergies, your intolerances, your answer.
But that only works if the data underneath is real. Not ticked boxes on a spreadsheet. Real ingredients, mapped to real allergens, calculated automatically. Change a recipe, and the allergens update. No one has to remember. No one has to hope.
That insight, ingredients in, allergens out, became the foundation. One source of truth, reaching guests and staff at the same time, accurate to today's menu. Not yesterday's. Not last month's. Today's.
THE AMBITION
A restaurant is more than a place to eat. It's where you celebrate, catch up, mark occasions, make memories. But for people with food allergies, that experience is often clouded by anxiety. The fear that your meal might make you sick, or the quiet resignation of ordering the one safe thing again.
People with dietary requirements eat at dozens of restaurants a year. They remember the ones that made them feel safe instead of like a burden. The ones where they didn't have to explain, didn't have to worry, didn't have to watch the server's face for that flicker of uncertainty.
We want every restaurant using Ingredifind to be one of those.
We're not building software. We're building the moment someone stops worrying.