#106 130 Million Meals made by Robots: Rajat Bhageria of Chef Robotics

Thrilled to introduce ​Rajat Bhageria​, the founder and CEO of ​Chef Robotics​, which builds AI-powered robots for food manufacturing. Chef’s robots have already made roughly 130 million servings deployed across the US, Canada, and Europe. We get into how robots are transforming food production, from reducing labor shortages and improving food safety to eventually making personalized meals cheaper and more accessible. If you’re interested in robotics, physical AI, or what happens when automation reaches one of the world’s largest industries, this episode is for you. Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 03:54 - Rajat's heroes and influences 05:21 - Introducing Chef Robotics 07:22 - Why food manufacturing is a massive opportunity 08:11 - Industry graveyard: why previous food robots failed 13:24 - Manufacturing over restaurants as go-to-market 14:50 - Current customers and what the robots make 16:07 - High-mix vs low-mix manufacturing 18:52 - Labor shortage and the reality of the job 20:55 - The research phase before starting Chef 24:24 - Building the early team 27:05 - The complexity of food manipulation 28:48 - Stealth mode and lack of competitors 31:15 - Ghost kitchens around the world 33:33 - Long-term vision and expansion strategy 37:23 - Where value accrues: hardware vs software vs models 43:03 - Impact on consumers: cheaper and safer food 46:50 - The future of home cooking 51:21 - Specialized robots vs humanoids 54:55 - Urgency as founder job number one 01:04:51 - Where to follow and get involved Link to audio: https://kite.link/smartfriends106yt Links: Eric Jorgenson LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/erjorgenson Twitter / X — https://x.com/EricJorgenson Website — https://www.ejorgenson.com/ Rajat on X - https://x.com/RajatBhageria Rajat on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajatbhageria/ Chef Robotics - https://www.chefrobotics.ai/