Industrial automation has been a pioneering field for robotics. While the food industry is among the most highly automated sectors of manufacturing, unlike other material-handling applications, food handling has been slower to adopt robotic technology. Over the past decade, however, the use of robotic technology has grown in the food sector, typically in picking, packaging, or palletizing operations.
Although the food industry is no longer a greenfield opportunity for robotics, the market is so large that there is still massive untapped potential for robotics applications to improve product quality and yield, and increase the efficiency and flexibility of the food manufacturing production line.