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Panasonic Celebrates 25 Years of the Iconic FlashXpress™ Toaster Oven with the Launch of the New Air Fry Toaster Oven and 25th Anniversary Edition FlashXpress

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New Models Aim to Modernize Classic Kitchen Appliance with Enhanced Functionality and Superior Design

NEWARK, N.J., March 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Panasonic today announced the FlashXpress™ Air Fry Toaster Oven NB-G211 Series and the FlashXpress Toaster Oven NB-G200– two cutting-edge additions designed for busy families seeking healthier, more convenient meal solutions. Combining powerful performance, intuitive functionality, and a health-conscious design, these elevated countertop appliances make cooking faster, easier, and more enjoyable than ever.

“Panasonic has a rich heritage in kitchen appliances, and a deep commitment to innovation, in pursuit of products that enhance consumer usability,” said Walter Taffarello, Director of New Business Development. “Our original FlashXpress Toaster Oven has remained a beloved staple for 25 years. Instead of reinventing it, we set out to reimagine the possibilities and expand the lineup. We first introduced a refreshed design celebrating this iconic product, and then built upon its legacy with a new model that honors what made the original so popular.”

After two and half decades, Panasonic is redefining its FlashXpress series with the FlashXpress Air Fry Toaster Oven (NB-G211 Series), a versatile appliance that seamlessly blends the sophistication of traditional Japanese design with modern functionality tailored for U.S. consumers. With 11 pre-set functions and a manual mode, this all-in-one countertop essential features seven dedicated cooking modes in a sleek, family friendly design: Air Fry, Air Roast, Roast, Bake, Broil, Dehydrate and Toast. Whether you’re crisping up fries, roasting a whole chicken or baking mozzarella sticks, the NB-G211 Series makes mealtime effortless.

At the core of this innovation is Panasonic’s advanced FlashXpress technology, which uses dual heating elements to enable rapid preheating and faster cook times. This ensures food is cooked evenly throughout– delivering juicy meats, perfectly golden toast, and irresistibly crispy-yet-tender results. The addition of the Air Fry function offers users and families lets families enjoy healthier meals and snacks, without compromising on flavor or texture. Plus, its all-enamel, PFAS-free interior ensures a safer, worry-free cooking experience with every use.

Engineered for modern households, the latest FlashXpress model boasts a spacious 28L interior– large enough to roast an entire small chicken–while its double-glass door construction optimizes heat retention for quick, even cooking. The sleek stainless steel design and intuitive user-friendly interface offers home chefs seamless control over cooking modes, temperature and time.

On the cusp of 25 years of the FlashXpress, Panasonic proudly launched a special anniversary edition in stainless steel in November 2024– the NB-G200 Toaster Oven. It built upon the same beloved rapid-cook technology of the appliance with an elevated design that matches today’s trends, an improved user interface for ease of use and PFAs-free aluminum interior. The updated model comes nearly seven years after Panasonic introduced a white and black colorway in 2018, broadening consumer appeal. The original Panasonic FlashXpress Toaster Oven (NB-G100PW) debuted in 1999 and became an instant top-pick– winning over consumers and industry awards with its dual heating elements, offering faster cooking times, without the need for preheating.

Panasonic is committed to shaping a more sustainable future by minimizing its environmental impact The new Panasonic FlashXpress Air Fry Toaster Oven and Toaster Oven use packaging that adheres to a zero-plastic standard. Interior packaging is made using molded pulp and outer cartons are using FSC-certified recyclable cardboard, paper tape and are printed with eco-friendly inks.

The Panasonic FlashXpress Air Fry Toaster Oven NB-G211is now available on Shop.Panasonic.com and Amazon for a suggested retail price of $299.99. This spring, consumers will also be able to find a similar model–the NB-G212, which includes a pizza stone accessory–exclusively at Costco. The FlashXpress Toaster Oven NB-G200 in stainless steel is also now available on Shop.Panasonic.com and Amazon.com for $169.99.

About Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company

Newark, NJ-based Panasonic Corporation of North America is a leading provider of Consumer Lifestyle technologies, as well as innovative Smart Mobility, Sustainable Energy, Immersive Experiences, and Integrated Supply Chain solutions. The company is the principal North American subsidiary of Osaka, Japan-based Panasonic Holdings Corporation. One of Interbrand’s Top 100 Best Global Brands of 2024, Panasonic is a leading technology partner and integrator to businesses, government agencies and consumers across the region. Learn more about Panasonic’s ideas and innovations at na.panasonic.com/us

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SOURCE Panasonic Corporation of North America

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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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