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Premier Soccer Services receives the Champions of Economic Impact Award from Sports Destinations Management for the 2024 Easter International Cup!

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Premier Soccer Services (PSS), the organizer of the Monterrey Rayados’ Copa Rayados Tournament Series across the USA, is proud to receive this prestigious award for economic Impact in sports tourism for its 2024 Easter International Cup.

HOUSTON, Dec. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Premier Soccer Services (PSS), the organizer of the Monterrey Rayados’ Copa Rayados Tournament Series across the USA, is proud to receive this prestigious award for economic Impact in sports tourism for its 2024 Easter International Cup. Sports Destination Management annually recognizes the top events in sports tourism across the nation and PSS has received the Mid Market Champions Award for 2024.

We’re really happy with our continued growth and success with our larger events. Going into the next 3 years, we’re exploring targeted expansion and partnering with more CVB’s and sports commissions

The Easter International Cup is one of the top international youth soccer events in the country with over 300 teams, 30 international teams, 120 out-of-state teams and 19 pro club youth academies. Kissimmee Sports Commission has been a critical partner from the beginning. The international event has seen 30 percent growth over the past four years in a row and is poised to reach 400 teams and utilize over 13,000 room nights in 2025. With this year over year growth, we’re continuing to expand our footprint into Orlando and Seminole County, as well as working with the Greater Orlando Sports Commission and Seminole County.

Premier Soccer Services manages tournaments nationally with several as part Mexican professional club Monterrey Rayados’ national events series. In 2024, PSS produced 9 events including 4 international tournaments

Copa Rayados West, Henderson/ Las Vegas NVCopa Rayados Internacional, The Woodlands/ Houston TXTexas International Cup, Arlington / Dallas TXEaster International Cup, Kissimmee/ Orlando FLEach of these events have 4,000-14,000 roomnights, daily attendances up to 17,500, and total attendances up to 85,000.

And 5 regional tournaments:

Copa Rayados East Coast, Loudoun / Washington DC areaCopa Rayados Chicago, Waukegan/ Chicago ILCopa Rayados RGV, McAllen TXThe Open Cup, Decatur, ALAlabama Labor Day Cup, Decatur, ALEach of these events have 750 – 4,000 roomnights, daily attendances up to 10,000, and total attendances up to 25,000

“We’re really happy with our continued growth and success with our larger events. Going into the next 3 years, we’re exploring targeted expansion and partnering with more CVB’s and sports commissions,” comments Scott Spencer, PSS president. “We’re expanding our international network for marketing and teams’ recruitment to create exciting, diverse events in order to separate ourselves from the crowded youth soccer tournament market.”

In terms of the collaboration with Monterrey Rayados, Adrian Vargas, Monterrey Rayados Soccer Academies & Competition Manager, discusses their USA strategy, “These events are really important for what it represents at the moment and the potential it has for the upcoming years. We´re sure that now that these youth tournament are affiliated to Rayados we´ll create events that will offer all participants a great experience and an opportunity to showcase their talent against international competition on top-quality facilities.”

Brandon Abell, PSS Director of Operations, states “It’s very important the relationships we’ve had with our partnering CVB’s, sports commissions, and municipalities. We’ve been really lucky to have great partners across all of our events nationally. It’s certainly an important factor as we are now looking at growth opportunities.”

About Premier Soccer Services: Premier Soccer Services (PSS) is a professional soccer management company organizing tournaments in Florida, Texas, Alabama, Virginia, Missouri, and Illinois. Since 2012, the estimated annual economic impact on communities from PSS events reached over $175 million. PSS specializes in professional management as well as marketing nationally and internationally. For more information see: http://www.premiersoccerservices.com, http://www.coparayados.com, http://www.texasinternationalcup.com, and http://www.facebook.com/coparayados or contact Scott Spencer at scott@premiersoccerservices.com or 1-210-305-4821

About CF Monterrey Rayados: The professional soccer club from Mexico competes in the top division of Mexico, LigaMX, with one of the largest fanbases in both Mexico and the USA. With 5 North American CONCACAF championships, it has competed in the FIFA Club World Cup, and consistently is at the top of attendance figures playing in their 50,000 seat BBVA Bancomer Stadium. With one of the strongest social media presence in LigaMX, it has over 5,000,000 social media followers across all platforms. The club has the best youth academy in Mexico and also with over 200 affiliated youth soccer programs in Mexico and the USA. For more information see: http://www.rayados.com or contact Adrian Vargas at adrian.vargas@rayados.com

Media Contact

Scott Spencer, Premier Soccer Services, 2053704427, scott@premiersoccerservices.com, www.coparayados.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prweb.com/releases/premier-soccer-services-receives-the-champions-of-economic-impact-award-from-sports-destinations-management-for-the-2024-easter-international-cup-302332500.html

SOURCE Premier Soccer Services

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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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