Co-Creation between Food Allergy Customers and Restaurants using Mobile Devices

Abstract

Dealing with food allergies in the restaurant industry is becoming more important as more customers have needs, and restaurants are concerned with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The objective of this chapter is to suggest how to provide information to facilitate the communication between the restaurant industry and the food allergy customers' families who want to enjoy dining out. As the first step, the authors conduct an interview with a major company in the restaurant industry to parallel the research of food allergy customers' families in order to identify communication problems. In the second step, they develop a mobile service to support communication between costomers and restaurants. Lastly, as the third step, the authors set up a focus group interview to verify usability of the mobile service. They find that there are many customers (9-55%), who are allergic to the 7 specific allergens, but there are also customers who are allergic to ingredients from the 25 allergens, such as sesame (12%), and who are allergic to multiple ingredients. The authors found that the lack of information about ingredients and the lack of knowledge of the employees are responsible for the inconsiderate customer service and misses in operation, leading to communication problems. The results of the study reveal co-creation strategies enhance customer knowledge of food and create a shared environment of information value. The communication support tool utilizing the touch panel mobile device developed in this study gained favorable reviews from customers' families.