Korea Food Research Institute completes successful field demonstration on Buldak sauce production line

The autonomous manufacturing line for Buldak sauce. [Korea Food Research Institute]
The autonomous manufacturing line for Buldak sauce. [Korea Food Research Institute]

Buldak sauce produced for export has achieved both higher productivity and lower manufacturing costs through the integration of AI technology.

The Korea Food Research Institute announced Monday that it had successfully completed a field demonstration applying robots and AI to boost the productivity of K-food export products and improve equipment operating efficiency.

As K-food exports have grown in recent years, food manufacturers have faced increasing demand for technology that can produce more goods quickly and reliably. The export version of Buldak sauce posed particular challenges: its new container design made it prone to wobbling and interference when containers were moved continuously along a conveyor. High-viscosity foods like sauce also require consistent control of fill volume, temperature and packaging condition, making production line management especially demanding.

To address these on-site challenges, the institute integrated robots and AI into select processes on the Buldak sauce production line. Robots placed empty containers onto dedicated trays and moved them to precise positions, handled the repetitive task of separating and repositioning containers before and after the film-labeling process, and packed individually wrapped products into boxes at the packaging stage.

AI analyzed data from the production line — including temperature, pressure, weight and robot status — to monitor process conditions. It displayed real-time information on screen so workers could quickly identify bottlenecks, check whether fill-volume errors were widening, and spot any unusual robot behavior.

Robots handled repetitive tasks reliably while AI flagged anomalies to support worker decision-making. Final judgments and process adjustments remained with on-site workers and supervisors.

Applied to actual production, daily output rose from 10 tons to 14.7 tons. Productivity improved 47 percent, and manufacturing costs fell 35.5 percent.

The production line is currently in a stabilization phase, with equipment and operating procedures being fine-tuned for full-scale mass production. As operating conditions are further refined and workers grow more familiar with the robot and AI systems, productivity and equipment efficiency are expected to improve further.

"This demonstration confirmed that robots and AI can be used in K-food production not to replace people, but to help them make faster and more accurate decisions," said Oh Seung-il, a researcher at the institute's Safety and Retail Research Division. "Building on this demonstration, we plan to develop an advanced standard model for AI-based autonomous manufacturing suited to food production environments."


nbgkoo@heraldcorp.com