Before the US and China Make Their Move, Korea Must Seize the Niche... The Key to Korean Cooking Robots Is 'K-Recipe' [Heukbaek Cooking Robot]⑤

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When asked about Korea's competitiveness in the cooking robot industry, Seonggeun Cho, Senior Investment Officer at Capstone Partners, a domestic venture capital (VC) firm, provided this assessment.

By country, efforts to develop cooking robots as an industry remain limited, and the focus areas differ by nation. The United States is focused on general-purpose robots and the defense sector, while China is prioritizing manufacturing automation, making the cooking sector more of a niche area by comparison.

However, it is unlikely that this landscape will remain unchanged for long. With the rapid advancement of humanoid robots from companies such as Tesla Optimus and Figure AI, the range of applications for robots is expanding. Cho noted, "Although humanoids are advancing quickly, it will still take a considerable amount of time before they are fully connected to actual cooking tasks."

At the N&I Laboratory in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, 'AlphaGrill' is lifting a grilled beef patty from the grill plate onto a tray. Photo by Daehyun Kim

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Jaehoon Choi, Senior Investment Officer at LB Investment, shared a similar view. After recently visiting humanoid robot companies in Shenzhen and Hangzhou, China, he explained, "While China is ahead in some respects, the gap is not yet significant," and added, "It will take more time to implement actual cooking beyond just hardware."

Hyunki Jung, CEO of Beyond Honeycomb, approached the topic from the perspective of application environments. He commented, "Since kitchens are tight spaces with repetitive processes, equipment optimized for specific tasks is more efficient than human-shaped robots," and predicted, "For the time being, equipment-type robots are likely to take the lead." Ultimately, over the next several years, as products are installed in real stores and data accumulates, competitiveness will likely be determined.

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Experts pointed to 'data' as one of the key competitive factors companies must secure before the market fully opens. Once hardware performance reaches a certain level, competitiveness will inevitably hinge on the quality and quantity of learning data.

Choi stated, "Chinese robotics companies are already focusing on securing data," and added, "They are accumulating cooking data locally and using it for machine learning."

Hyunjun Jung, Director at the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement, also emphasized, "It is important to accelerate learning by securing a large amount of quality data and physical simulators that reflect the unique characteristics of cooking."

Jung also introduced a strategy that leverages Korea's K-recipe as a competitive advantage. He said, "For Korea to lead in food tech robotics and humanoids, it must secure a wealth of tacit knowledge and recipes from skilled cooks." He explained that the foundation of taste must be maintained to ensure consistent demand.

Cooking process and result analysis information are provided on the dashboard of Beyond Honeycomb's 'GrillX'. Photo by Seoyul Hwang

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Kiweon Lee, Professor of Food and Biotechnology at Seoul National University and Chairman of the World Food Tech Council, explained, "When AI reaches the point of providing personalized recommendations based on consumer preferences, food tech will be linked to intellectual property (IP)," and proposed a model of branding cooking robots by combining them with recipes from celebrity chefs or entertainers.

This means that the core asset of K-cooking robots will be the datafication of tacit knowledge-such as the unique touch of renowned chefs, celebrities' recipes, and the intuitive judgments of experienced cooks-that cannot easily be quantified by standard cooking manuals alone.

Students are lining up at the student cafeteria on Seoul National University Gwanak Campus to eat dinner menus prepared by the cooking robot. Photo by Daehyun Kim.

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The public sector is being mentioned as one way to quickly accumulate data. Mass meal service systems, which involve repetitive large-scale cooking, are a prime example.

Professor Lee explained, "Unlike small independent restaurants, mass catering must produce meals for 100 or even 1,000 people in a short amount of time. This is difficult for humans and can raise hygiene and quality issues, making the introduction of cooking robots highly effective." He emphasized the importance of the public sector as an initial source of demand, citing schools, nursing homes, and the military as examples. Children need to experience food made by cooking robots in schools so that they can accept it naturally in the future.

Such environments do more than simply serve as sources of demand-they also play a role in technology verification. They help to resolve issues that arise during actual operations and to establish maintenance systems. CEO Jung stated, "For physical AI cooking robots to be adopted in everyday life, there are significant hurdles to overcome, such as on-site installation, maintenance, and certification," and added, "There needs to be more government support for real-world pilot programs."

Suhan Park, Professor at the Department of Robotics at Kwangwoon University, emphasized the importance of spatial design. He said, "It is crucial to design the optimal layout for efficiency when deploying cooking robots," and explained, "Reconfiguring facilities so that tasks like salad ingredient preparation and refrigeration are performed with optimal workflows in a single space will be key to leading the global market." Professor Park believes that this process automation will ultimately serve as a bridge to the age of humanoid robots.

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However, many in the cooking robot startup sector believe that, rather than focusing on regulatory reform and government support, companies must develop their own competitiveness for the global stage.

In particular, actuators-a core component of robots-account for a significant portion of overall costs. If components are sourced externally, prices increase, directly impacting product competitiveness. In addition, there is a trend of moving production bases overseas to countries like Vietnam and the Philippines. With both key components and production being outsourced, the share captured by domestic companies is inevitably limited.

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Jeongsu Song, CEO of Leepiz, stated, "In Korea, regulatory issues in the cooking robot sector are not significant. In reality, the bigger challenges are technology and production." He continued, "If costs accumulate at the component stage, the final product price rises significantly. Ultimately, the key variable is how much production cost can be reduced," and added, "Most domestic companies still lack original technology and are assembling existing components with applications layered on top."

There are still no major competitors and the golden time has not passed. Backed by the global meta-trend of K-culture, K-food tech and K-cooking robots are facing a major opportunity, and the government is well aware of this. With dishes like bibimbap, bulgogi, and ramen now enjoyed at dining tables around the world, the government is preparing policies so that the robots making these foods can be exported as well.

Misun Yoo, Director of Food Tech Policy at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, explained, "We are already exporting a lot of K-food, and one of the government's key initiatives is to export K-food along with robot technology," and added, "We are now at the stage of incorporating food tech into export support policies." In other words, the 'K-package' strategy, which bundles food and robots, is now being specified at the policy level.

The menu selection button appears on ENI's 'Alphagrill' dashboard. Photo by Daehyun Kim

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The cooking robot industrial ecosystem is no different from a kitchen. If the key players-startups driving innovation, VCs providing capital, academia developing and verifying technology, and the government supporting the market-are not in sync, it will be difficult to secure industry competitiveness. The cooking robot industry has only just moved past its initial stage. Real demand is emerging, products are being deployed in the field, and data is being accumulated in real time. In the end, only the 'K-robot chef' that survives and refines its technology in the most demanding cooking environments will remain in the kitchen.

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