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L&L HAWAIIAN BARBECUE PARTNERS WITH BOTRISTA TO OFFER SIGNATURE BEVERAGES

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The fast-growing brand popularizing Hawaiian cuisine across America strategically expands its menu with premium craft lemonades, smoothies and boba teas, meeting customer demand and adding incremental beverage sales for franchisees

HONOLULU, May 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, the popular Hawaii-based restaurant franchise with over 230 locations in the US and Japan, is expanding its craft beverage menu to include new signature offerings at select locations, thanks to its partnership with leading beverage platform, Botrista.

 

Fast-growing brand popularizing Hawaiian cuisine in America introduces premium craft lemonades, smoothies and boba teas.

“At L&L, we are proud to bring the comfort food of Hawaii to our guests. Our new drink menu offers our guests trending drinks that complement the style and flavors of our menu,” said Elisa Flores, CEO of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue. “By partnering with Botrista, we are able to provide customers with exceptional beverages while also ensuring that our franchisees drive increased profitability.”

The new menu features two signature drinks, Lilikoi Lemonade and Lilikoi Smoothie, alongside a selection of boba teas (classic, taro, matcha, strawberry) and fruit smoothies (taro, strawberry, pineapple-coconut).

Lilikoi Lemonade: Enjoy the flavors of Hawaii in this naturally sweet, tart & zesty lemonade refresher capable of offering a refreshing tropical experience.

Lilikoi Smoothie: Traditionally smooth, sweet and creamy – this Hawaiian staple is guaranteed to fill you up with the juicy flavors of the islands.

Founded in Honolulu 1952 as L&L Dairy, L & L Hawaiian Barbecue was recently recognized by Yelp as #21 on Yelp’s List of Fast Growing Brands. With the global lemonade market projected to reach nearly $16B by 2032 and the boba tea market projected to hit $3.6 billion by 2028, there’s immense potential for growth in the beverage sector. Introducing Botrista as a beverage partner for L&L’s franchisee network is a strategic move, allowing the fast-growing chain to expand its drink offerings to meet this growing demand, while maintaining both quick preparation times and exceptional quality. With our select live locations, L&L is already at a run rate of 100K Botrista drinks sold per year.

“In today’s competitive landscape, data-driven decision-making paired with culinary creativity is essential for restaurant brands that are focused on staying ahead of the latest consumer trends—and in turn, providing value to their franchisees,” explains Sean Hsu, Botrista’s Chief Executive Officer. “Our team worked closely with L&L team to develop a beverage menu that would both delight their guests and be easy for franchisees to implement.” Using the BotristaPro, L&L franchisees can serve made-to-order craft drinks in under 20 seconds, at the touch of a button, within a five square foot space. 

“Our customers love the new drink options,” said Tia Matautia, owner and operator of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue in Tumwater, WA. “We have become a destination not only for our food, but for our boba teas and other drinks as well. At the same time, our staff finds the drinks incredibly easy to prepare and the machine is simple to operate.” 

The new beverage menu is available at participating locations. For additional information, visit http://hawaiianbarbecue.com or follow the company on Instagram or Facebook @llhawaiianbbq.

About L&L Hawaiian Barbecue
Founded in Honolulu as L&L Dairy in 1952, Eddie Flores, Jr. and Johnson Kam, both immigrants from China, acquired L&L in 1976. Together, they grew the business and it became one of the most popular and successful chains serving fresh plate lunches in generous portions and affordable prices. In 1999, the co-founders introduced the L&L brand of Hawaiian plate lunches to the continental United States and rebranded the franchise to what it is known today as L&L Hawaiian Barbecue. Today, “Hawaiian Barbecue” is one of the fastest-growing categories due to its blend of ethnic flavors and representation of Hawaii’s culture and cuisine. L&L Hawaiian Barbecue has 228 locations throughout the U.S. and Japan. For more information, visit hawaiianbarbecue.com.

About Botrista
Botrista’s mission is to help restaurants become more profitable by enabling them to serve trending beverages without added complexity. Botrista offers an ever-changing selection of premium, made-to-order beverages from over 15 categories and 2,000 recipes—ready in under 20 seconds, with push of a button ease. From boba teas and iced coffee creations, to smoothies, refreshing blended lemonades, seasonal specialties, and more, Botrista is a full craft beverage platform that blends innovation with nature’s flavors, providing its partners with a long-term solution to keeping up with consumer trends. Restaurants can expand and upgrade their drink offerings, boost profits, increase operational efficiency—and enhance guest satisfaction and loyalty. For more information visit https://botrista.com/.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ll-hawaiian-barbecue-partners-with-botrista-to-offer-signature-beverages-302156883.html

SOURCE Botrista Inc.

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Air Products to Expand Industrial Gas Supply for Samsung Electronics’ Next-Generation Semiconductor Fab in South Korea

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New investment underscores the company’s long-term commitment to Korea and its leading role in the global semiconductor industry 

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE:APD), a world-leading industrial gases company and serving Samsung globally, today announced it has been selected by Samsung to supply industrial gases for its new advanced semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Under the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate multiple state-of-the-art production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system to supply nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen for Samsung’s new semiconductor fab. The new facilities are expected to come onstream in multiple phases from 2028 through 2030.

Air Products has a long track record of executing multiple phase expansions in Pyeongtaek to support Samsung’s growing manufacturing needs. This latest project represents Air Products’ largest investment to date in the semiconductor industry and will establish Pyeongtaek as the company’s single largest operations site globally supporting the electronics industry. 

“Air Products is honored to be selected once again by Samsung and to have their continued confidence as a trusted partner supporting their strategic growth plans,” said SR Kim, President, Air Products Korea. “This significant investment reinforces Air Products’ role as a leading global supplier to the semiconductor industry and underscores our long-standing commitment to supporting our strategic customers with safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products has served the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to many of the world’s leading technology companies. The company has operated in Korea for more than 50 years and has established a strong position in electronics and manufacturing sectors.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 85 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets and generating a cleaner future. The Company supplies essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical and food. As the leading global supplier of hydrogen, Air Products also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest clean hydrogen projects, supporting the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy in the industrial and heavy-duty transportation sectors. Through its sale of equipment businesses, the Company also provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers globally.

Air Products had fiscal 2025 sales of $12 billion from operations in approximately 50 countries. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedInXFacebook or Instagram.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. While forward-looking statements are made in good faith and based on assumptions, expectations and projections that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors, including the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the assumptions, beliefs or expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any such forward-looking statements are based.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-products-to-expand-industrial-gas-supply-for-samsung-electronics-next-generation-semiconductor-fab-in-south-korea-302757497.html

SOURCE Air Products

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