"No pork. No peanuts." Without causing a scene, how do I convey to restaurant staff that means my food can never have even touched pork or peanuts - especially when there's a language barrier in the way? This system makes use of RFID technology to addresses the issue; particularly for Japan, where hospitality and polite behavior are huge concerns.

 

The goal is to create a seamless, subtle, and confusion-free interaction between restaurant and customer: 

An individual would wear a pin embedded with an RFID. The chip would contain information about the person's dietary restrictions. Participating restaurants would have sensors at each table that read the RFID signal, and send warnings/notice to wait staff and kitchen. Appropriate menus, dish recommendations, and caution could then be exercised. 

Plates could even be embedded with LEDs and RFID. Then, when the dish arrives at the right person, it would glow green. If it were in front of the wrong person, it would glow red.

 

The RFID could be embedded into fabric, or prints to make a greater statement about dietary restrictions. A greater presence would generate more awareness about diet choices and food concerns. Restaurant competence and diner confidence would both increase.

And what if the small pin could double as a food probe? If the diner is still in doubt, by probing the dish, the pin would communicate with a smart device. The device would access a learning online database to identify allergens. By glowing green or red, the pin would then signal to the diner that the food is safe to eat or not. A list of ingredients could later be read on the diner's smart device; and the dish would be catalogued in the database.