Vending machines took an enormous leap forward in the 1990s when they began to accept credit/debit cards. In the 2010s they took another leap forward when they began to accept other forms of electronic payment. To date, however, this kind of technology has not found its way into the home (or other "home-like" environments). KIkey is about to change that.

KIkey is a system that limits access to food based on a calorie budget, monetary budget, or other kind of budget. KIkey is a hardware/software system consisteng of: dispensing devices (and the software that runs on them) that control access to food products, server-side software that manages access, and client-side software (e.g., on mobile devices) that manages "keys".

The mission of KIKey is to:

• Enable you to create and manage a food budget (based on calories, price, or some other measure).
• Enable you to request a specific food item from a server and deduct the "cost" of that item from your budget.
• Enable you to remove approved food items from a dispenser using your cellular phone (or other mobile computing/communication device).

Given our history, KitchIntel is ideally suited to design, develop and market KIkey.