Chef Robotics and ILPRA partner to automate meal assembly and packaging

Chef Robotics, a leader in AI-enabled robotic meal assembly, has partnered with ILPRA, a global packaging technology company, to deliver an integrated automation solution for meal assembly and packaging across fresh and frozen ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat production lines. The collaboration combines Chef’s meal assembly robots with ILPRA’s tray sealing and packaging systems to address labor shortages and operational challenges in food manufacturing, particularly in cold-room environments where manual tasks are difficult to sustain.

What you should know: The joint solution targets the growing pressure food manufacturers face to maintain consistency, safety, and efficiency while dealing with labor shortages and repetitive manual tasks.

• Chef’s robots handle portioning and depositing ingredients into trays, while ILPRA’s systems manage the packaging and sealing process.
• The integrated approach is designed to handle hundreds of stock-keeping units (SKUs) and frequent changeovers on high-mix production lines.
• The solution is now available to food manufacturers in the U.S. and Canada.

Key performance metrics: Chef Robotics has demonstrated significant scale in North American operations, while ILPRA brings decades of packaging expertise to the partnership.

• Chef’s meal assembly robots have completed over 70 million servings for customers across North America.
• ILPRA contributes more than 70 years of expertise in custom packaging systems, including tray sealers and form-fill-seal solutions.
• The combined solution aims to increase worker productivity, maximize throughput, and reduce product giveaway.

Why this matters: Food manufacturers are struggling with labor bottlenecks in meal assembly and packaging operations, especially in cold-room production environments where precision and flexibility are essential but difficult to scale.

• The partnership addresses acute challenges in maintaining high throughput without sacrificing quality or profitability.
• Automation becomes particularly valuable in cold storage facilities where labor shortages are “omnipresent,” according to the companies.

What they’re saying: Leadership from both companies emphasized the strategic value of combining their respective strengths in AI-powered robotics and packaging technology.

• “This partnership combines Chef’s AI focus and flexibility with ILPRA’s packaging expertise to help food manufacturers automate more of their production process,” said Rajat Bhageria, Founder and CEO of Chef Robotics.
• “Our shared vision is to make food production more efficient, reliable, and scalable without compromising quality,” added Mike Cheatle, Vice President at ILPRA America.

What’s next: The companies will showcase their integrated solution at the EATS trade show in Chicago from October 28-30, 2025, demonstrating a Chef robot and ILPRA tray sealer working with real ingredients at booth #1709.