top of page
Windows 7 ultimate collection of wallpapers (60).jpg

Robotics in Food Processing Advances, Applications, Challenges and Future Perspectives

< Back

Reyaz Dudekula, Vaishnavi Kamalakar, Sanika Sonawane, Kails Kamble, Vikram Kad, Vilas Salve, GB Yenge and Ganesh Shelke

2025/12/12

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17911022

29111_edited.jpg

ABSTRACT

Robotics is transforming the food processing industry by enabling safer, faster and more consistent operations across the supply chain. Driven by advances in machine vision, artificial intelligence, collaborative robotics and soft robotics, modern systems address tasks ranging from sorting and grading to delicate picking and complex cutting. This review synthesizes recent developments (2018–2025), describes technologies and sector-specific applications, discusses hygiene and regulatory requirements, analyzes economic and sustainability impacts and highlights technical challenges and future research directions. Emphasis is placed on handling variability of food products, hygienic design and integration with digital technologies for traceability and predictive maintenance.

AUTHOR AFFILIATIONS

1 Department of Agricultural Process Engineering, Dr. ASCAE&T, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri, Maharashtra, India.
2 AICRP on Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology, RS & JRS, Kolhapur, MPKV, Rahuri, Maharashtra, India.

CITATION

Dudekula R, Kamalakar V, Sonawane S, Kamble K, Kad V, Salve V, Yenge GB and Shelke G (2025) Robotics in Food Processing Advances, Applications, Challenges and Future Perspectives. Environmental Science Archives 4(2): 918-926.

REFERENCES

Avenues for Non-conventional Robotics Technology Applications in the Food Industry (2023) Food Research International 173(Part 1):113265.

Bac CW, van Henten EJ, Hemming J and Edan Y (2014) Harvesting robots for high-value crops: State-of-the-art review and challenges ahead. Journal of Field Robotics 31(6):888–911.

Bechar A and Vigneault C (2016) Agricultural robots for field operations: Concepts and components. Biosystems Engineering 149:94–111.

Bruinsma J, et al. (2020) Robotics and automation in food processing: A review. Trends in Food Science & Technology 99:35–43.

Doumanidis CC, et al. (2022) Advanced robotic systems for meat processing. Meat Science 192:108914.

Dzedzickis A, Petronienė JJ, Petkevičius S and Bučinskas V (2024) Soft grippers in robotics: Progress of last 10 years. Machines 12(12):887.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (2022) The state of food and agriculture 2022: Leveraging agricultural automation for transforming agrifood systems. FAO, Rome.

Lalita and Kumar P (2022) Robotics intervention in food processing industries: A mini review. Current Journal of Applied Science and Technology 41(40):1–9.

Lehnert C, Albu-Schäffer A, et al. (2021) Soft robotic grippers for food handling. Journal of Food Engineering 284:110041.

Lipson H and Sukkarieh S (2023) Robots may transform the way we produce and prepare food. Nature Reviews Bioengineering 1:795–798.

Liu Y, Hou J, Li C and Wang X (2023) Intelligent soft robotic grippers for agricultural and food product handling: A brief review with a focus on design and control. Advanced Intelligent Systems 2023:12.

Martinez R, et al. (2022) Cobots in the dairy supply chain: Deployment, challenges and benefits. Trends in Food Science & Technology 128:42–52.

Nguyen T, Singh A and Bhatia S (2023) Soft robotic grippers for handling delicate food products: A review. Journal of Food Engineering 377:110584.

Ouyang W, et al. (2023) Vision-based sorting and grading of fruits using deep learning. Food Control 143:109276.

Patel P, Chen Z and Kumar R (2023) Hygienic design in food processing robotics: Standards and innovations. Journal of Food Safety 45(5):e13017.

Pavlovic M, et al. (2022) Hygienic robot design: Materials and methods for food processing. Trends in Food Safety 7:55–68.

Rajendran V, Debnath B, Mghames S, Parsons S and Ghalamzan-E (2023) Towards autonomous selective harvesting: A review of robot perception, robot design, motion planning and control. ArXiv 2304.09617.

Roberge G, et al. (2020) Collaborative robots in food manufacturing. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 17(1):1729881420902000.

Sirris (2024) Guide to hygienic design of robot-based automation systems. Technical Guide, 2024.

Smith J, Liu X and Rodriguez A (2024) Deep learning-based defect detection in fruit sorting robotics. Food Control 150:110789.

Wang Y, Zhao H and Lee T (2024) Autonomous mobile robots in beverage production lines. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 213:107933.

Wurman PR, D'Andrea R and Mountz M (2008) Coordinating hundreds of cooperative, autonomous vehicles in warehouses. AI Magazine 29(1):9–20.

Zhang H, Kang N, Qu Q, Zhou L and Zhang H (2024) Automatic fruit picking technology: A comprehensive review. Artificial Intelligence Review 57:1–45.

by.png

License: Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. Visit for more details http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

bottom of page