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RedCloud CEO Justin Floyd Advocates for Open Commerce and AI to Combat Counterfeits

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A study reveals 60% of Amazon products are counterfeit, with 43% of reviews being fake. SMBs are hit hardest. Justin Floyd, CEO of RedCloud, advocates for Open Commerce and AI to combat counterfeits and restore trust. Counterfeits pose economic and health risks, funding crime. RedCloud’s platform ensures product authenticity, connecting FMCG brands with reliable partners.

LONDON, May 28, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Studies have concluded that up to 60% of products sold on Amazon may be counterfeit (1), and 43% of product reviews for Amazon’s best-selling products are fake. (2) Most third-party sellers on Amazon are small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), accounting for 60% of Amazon’s sales in 2023. (3) With $2 trillion worth of counterfeit products sold each year, (4) how can SMBs be sure that their inventory is what their supplier says it is? Who can they trust? Justin Floyd, Founder and CEO of RedCloud, suggests, “With a combination of Open Commerce, AI, smart technology, and small businesses working together, the blight of poor quality and often dangerous knock-offs could disappear over the next decade. Now is the time to bring trust back into trade.”

“With a combination of Open Commerce, AI, smart technology, and small businesses working together, the blight of poor quality and often dangerous knock-offs could disappear over the next decade. Now is the time to bring trust back into trade.” – Justin Floyd, CEO of RedCloud

A study by Markmonitor reports that 47% of brands are losing revenue due to counterfeit products, with one-third experiencing a drop of 10% or more. Fifty-eight percent of the companies interviewed believe things will get even worse as counterfeiters become more sophisticated and the high cost of living forces consumers to seek out cheaper goods and services. (5) Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), such as clothing and health and beauty products, are the bread and butter of online sales. Apparel is the world’s top-selling commodity. According to a survey by Michigan State University, clothes and shoes are the most counterfeited items in the retail supply chain. (6)

Combatting the scourge of bogus consumer products is truly a matter of life and death. Among the most dangerous counterfeit items are pharmaceutical, baby, cosmetic, automotive, alcohol, and food products. (7) The consequences of counterfeit products can be catastrophic as they are unregulated and not subject to any health and safety standards. Many fake products contain carcinogens and other harmful substances and chemicals that could pose serious health risks, even death. A laboratory study of counterfeit goods by the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA) discovered that 36.2% of the items tested contained alarming levels of arsenic, cadmium, phthalates, and lead. (8)

It’s an endless loop of cause and effect. The more consumers buy fake products, the more fake products are manufactured. Floyd warns, “The dangers of tolerating and even encouraging this vicious cycle are incalculable and infinite. We must do something about this now, not three years from now.”

Getting to the bottom of this counterfeit quagmire requires clearly identifying exactly where these products are coming from. Despite recent efforts to crack down on fake merchandise in the online retail space, there are too many vulnerabilities along the eCommerce supply chain to prevent future iterations of temporarily sidelined counterfeiting cartels. RedCloud is a pioneer in Open Commerce, the second generation of eCommerce, utilizing deep tech software like Artificial Intelligence to pinpoint the source of fake products. RedCloud’s Intelligent Open Commerce Platform helps FMCG brands, distributors, and local merchants connect with trusted trading partners along the supply chain, ensuring that all products have been vetted for quality and authenticity.

SMBs spend years building their brand’s reputation, which can be destroyed in an instant by a predatory supplier of counterfeit goods. Open Commerce treats the cause, not the symptoms, by guaranteeing the integrity of every trade partner. Floyd attests, “By investing in technology and signing up with an Open Commerce environment, businesses can be confident that they are buying genuine, high-quality products from the right sources at the right price.”

About RedCloud
RedCloud Technology, founded in 2012, stands as a “Rebel Alliance,” leading a bold, second-generation e-commerce transformation. Rejecting the high fees of tech giants, RedCloud leverages AI-driven supply chain solutions to empower smaller businesses, giving them the tools to compete with major corporations. Their democratized, cloud-based platform provides real-time financial visibility, offering a level playing field that breaks free from the dominance of conventional marketplaces. RedCloud embodies a fairer, more inclusive digital commerce future where Davids can stand tall against Goliaths. For more about RedCloud Technology visit their website at https://redcloudtechnology.com/.

References:
1. Matcha, Vidyullatha. “Amazon Counterfeit Products: Everything You Need to Know.” LinkedIn, 31 Jan. 2024, linkedin.com/pulse/amazon-counterfeit-products-everything-you-need-know-matcha-w6mpc/. 
2. Millions of Amazon Reviews Fake, Study Finds, cybernews.com/security/millions-amazon-reviews-fake/. Accessed 14 May 2024.
3. Babcock, Stephen. “60% of Amazon Sales Are Generated by Third-Party Sellers.” The Current, The Current, 25 May 2023, thecurrent.media/amazon-third-party-sellers.
4. “$2 Trillion Worth of Counterfeit Products Are Sold Each Year. Can Ai Help Put a Stop to It?” CBS News, CBS Interactive, cbsnews.com/news/ai-counterfeit-detection-amazon/. Accessed 14 May 2024.
5. Lg. “How Does Counterfeiting Affect Brands?” Potter Clarkson, potterclarkson.com/insights/how-does-counterfeiting-affect-brands/. Accessed 14 May 2024.
6. Person. “MSU Survey: 7 in 10 Consumers Deceived into Buying Counterfeit Products Online.” MSUToday, 19 Oct. 2023, msutoday.msu.edu/news/2023/msu-survey-7-in-10-consumers-deceived-into-buying-counterfeit-products-online#:~:text=Clothes%20and%20shoes%20%E2%80%94%20the%20most,harmful%20chemicals%20such%20as%20lead.
7. Chekkit Technologies. “6 Most Dangerous Counterfeit Products – Chekkit Blog.” Chekkit Technologies, 26 Nov. 2022, chekkitapp.com/blog/6-most-dangerous-counterfeit-products/.
8. Ndure, Isatou. “Aafa Demands Answers on Counterfeit Goods.” Just Style, 1 Feb. 2024, just-style.com/news/aafa-demands-answers-from-e-commerce-giants-on-counterfeit-goods/?cf-view.

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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

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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.

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