A university canteen in Southwest China is serving up something new this semester by tagging pre-portioned meals with scannable chips to speed up lines and payment.
The system at Chengdu University of Technology (CUT) in Sichuan Province involves an RFID chip on the bottom of each plate containing data about the meal's contents and its price.
The plates are placed on a scanner, which calculates the total bill and allows students to swipe their meal cards.
The system has been popular among students ever since it was put into effect on August 23.
"You don't have to wait for your dishes to be served and passed to you by canteen staff. It also helps avoid human calculation errors," a student surnamed Lu told The Paper on Friday.
The RFID system has also saved on operating costs, said a director of the university's catering services surnamed Yang.
CUT is not the first school canteen to implement such a system, with a similar one in place at East China's Zhejiang University.
