News

Food sensor company maps world's peanut, gluten-free restaurant dishes

February 8, 2019

Food sensor company, Nima, has launched an online tool that lists gluten-free and peanut-free dishes at chain restaurants. The tool springs from a large testing initiative of the Top 100 restaurant chains aimed at giving those with food allergies the chance to use Nima's data, a news release said. 

The result was a map featuring more than 250,000 restaurant locations. Customers can go to the Nima website, input their location and get a detailed list of nearby restaurants that feature allergen-free menu items. 

"One of our key values at Nima is data for decisions," Nima co-founder and CEO Shireen Yates, said in the release. "Our ultimate goal is the democratization and transparency of data as it relates to food allergens and this new platform brings us one step closer to our mission."

Nima said its staff tested menu items from over 100 popular chain restaurants using the Nima Gluten and Nima Peanut sensors to detect the presence of gluten or peanut. Dishes found free of these allergens were mapped to include all additional locations of the restaurant worldwide. As a result, more than 3 million dishes have been labeled "Nima-tested" in locations worldwide. 

The release said that it should be noted that Nima's results don't account for any potential cross-contamination that may occur in Nima-tested restaurants. 

"Nima is not designed to replace any of the precautions people with food allergies or sensitivities are already taking at mealtime," Yates said. "Our program is designed to provide one additional data point that when someone does a search, they will get Nima-tested results, regardless of where they are located."