The present invention relates to a consumable recognition system for recognizing placement and/or type of consumable containing a food substance for the preparation of a beverage by use of a beverage dispenser. To enable the recognition of placement and/or type of consumable in a simple, foolproof and easily implementable way the system comprises a plurality of magnetic and/or electric field elements (31, 32, 33, 301) for separately sensing a magnetic and/or electric field, wherein said consumable comprises one or more magnetically and/or electrically conductive elements (42, 51, 61, 71, 81, 82, 91, 92) and the sensed magnetic fields depend on at least one characteristic of the one or more magnetically and/or electrically conductive elements, a driver (34) for providing drive currents to said magnetic and/or electric field elements, and a signal processor (35) for recognizing placement and/or type of consumable based on the sensed magnetic and/or electric fields.