ABB Robots and Home Cooking with AI Meal Plans

JD.com's CHEFRESH pairs AI meal plans with a home cooking robot. See how ABB's IRB 4600 cooked at Roboeatz and how a GoFa-sized arm could fit a home kitchen.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/24/20261 min read

In 1942 a government photographer caught Mrs. Leslie Atkins cooking dinner in her kitchen at a federal housing project, pots on the stove and plates already on the table. One person planned the menu, bought the food and stood over the heat, and did it again the next night.

Woman cooking at a stove in a small 1940s kitchen with a set dining table in front
Woman cooking at a stove in a small 1940s kitchen with a set dining table in front

Mrs. Leslie Atkins preparing dinner in a federal housing project kitchen, 1942. Photo: Marjory Collins, FSA/OWI / Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Kitchen machines took over pieces of that job. Mixers and pressure cookers came first, then appliances like Vorwerk's Thermomix, which weighs, chops, stirs and heats on its own while a screen walks the cook through a recipe. Somebody still had to decide what to eat, shop for it and load the bowl.

White kitchen appliance with a steel mixing bowl and a touchscreen showing a recipe
White kitchen appliance with a steel mixing bowl and a touchscreen showing a recipe

A Vorwerk Thermomix TM6, which weighs, chops, stirs and heats with guided recipes. Photo: EinAnonymerBenutzerVonVielen / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

On September 16, JD.com launched CHEFRESH in China. Its AI reads a user's health check report and diet preferences and writes a meal plan. JD's cold-chain network delivers the ingredients cleaned and portioned, and a cooking robot at home does the cooking, seasoning and its own cleanup. Raffles Hospital signed on as a partner.

Chef in a white hat tossing food in a wok over a roaring gas burner
Chef in a white hat tossing food in a wok over a roaring gas burner

Chefs stir-frying over a high flame in Nanjing. Photo: The Pocket / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Big robot arms have cooked full meals before. Latvian startup Roboeatz built its ARK kitchen around an ABB IRB 4600, an industrial robot usually found moving heavy parts in factories. According to ABB, the ARK can make over 10,000 recipes from 80 ingredients and work on four dishes at once.

White ABB industrial robot arm inside a compact kitchen enclosure with Roboeatz signs
White ABB industrial robot arm inside a compact kitchen enclosure with Roboeatz signs

An ABB IRB 4600 robot inside the Roboeatz ARK autonomous kitchen. Photo: ABB

Roboeatz aimed the ARK at airports, hospitals and schools, where fresh made-to-order food is hard to staff. A home needs something smaller. ABB's GoFa cobot is closer in size and has torque sensors in every joint, so it stops when it bumps into someone, which matters in a cramped kitchen.

Robot gripper holding a paper bowl of pasta with vegetables inside a kitchen cell
Robot gripper holding a paper bowl of pasta with vegetables inside a kitchen cell

The ARK's gripper holding a freshly cooked bowl of pasta. Photo: ABB

A realistic home setup might pair JD-style meal planning with a compact cooker and a gentle arm that moves ingredients and pans. CHEFRESH also lets families record their own recipes, down to heat and timing, for the robot to repeat. I'd happily hand over weeknight dinners, though I'd keep Sunday cooking for myself.

Woman guiding an ABB GoFa cobot arm by hand at a workbench
Woman guiding an ABB GoFa cobot arm by hand at a workbench

ABB's GoFa cobot is guided by hand and stops when it senses contact. Photo: ABB

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