A soldier with the 19th Expeditionary Sustainment Command is served a meal prepared by the new autonomous kitchen at Camp Walker, South Korea, Nov. 28, 2025. (Alejandro Carrasquel/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP WALKER, South Korea — A robotic kitchen that cooks, portions and serves fresh meals with almost no human involvement is now operating at Market 19, the Army’s first autonomous dining facility.
The fully automated system at the 19th Expeditionary Sustainment Command works like a compact industrial kitchen, using refrigerated storage, eight induction stoves and two robotic arms to move raw ingredients through the cooking process.
Meals are prepared in a matter of minutes before the robot places them into heated pickup lockers, said Hendrik Susemihl, CEO and co-founder of goodBytz, the Germany-based company that built the system.
“It’s basically designed like a physical kitchen, but the robot takes over the handling between fridges, induction stoves and dishwashing,” he said Friday during a tour of the kitchen at Camp Walker. “It takes three to five minutes to cook a fresh dish.”
A new autonomous kitchen prepares a Thanksgiving meal at Camp Walker, South Korea, Nov. 28, 2025. (Alejandro Carrasquel/Stars and Stripes)
Unlike equipment that reheats precooked items, the robot — called eric. — starts with raw ingredients, following a digital recipe sequence.
“Any ingredient that goes in the robot is still handled by humans,” the command’s culinary adviser, Chief Warrant Officer 3 River Mitchell, said during the tour. “If carrots come in from a vendor, we still wash them, peel them, dice them, but that’s really it. The robot takes care of the cooking process.”
Soldiers load the raw items into the system and the robot does the rest.
“You don’t just warm up convenience food,” Susemihl said. “It’s real cooking, and creativity is the limit because the robot can be freely programmed with recipes.”
A new autonomous kitchen prepares a Thanksgiving meal at Camp Walker, South Korea, Nov. 28, 2025. (Alejandro Carrasquel/Stars and Stripes)
Culinary soldiers supporting the six-month pilot program, which began Nov. 13, said the automated process also ensures accurate portioning, reducing food waste during busy periods.
“Everything here is weighed out in grams,” said Spc. Brandon Williams, a culinary specialist with the 541st Field Feeding Company. “The robot’s hoppers and baskets are tied to a scale, so we have complete control of portion sizes, and we can see which dishes are more popular and adjust prep.”
A rotating menu offers several options throughout the week. On Friday, the system served three holiday dishes.
“For the Thanksgiving meal, we have three staples — a ham dish, a roasted turkey that we smoked on the Traeger pellet grill, and then a vegetarian dish,” Mitchell said.
Pfc. Eliott Reyes-Miranda, a member of the command who chose the roasted turkey, said the dish exceeded his expectations.
“The turkey was seasoned, the stuffing was pretty good, and considering a robot made it, it’s pretty cool,” he said.
Soldiers dine on Thanksgiving meals prepared by the new autonomous kitchen at Camp Walker, South Korea, Nov. 28, 2025. (Alejandro Carrasquel/Stars and Stripes)
The system also allows kitchens to operate with fewer personnel while maintaining production.
“On the weekends, we can run this with one cook,” Williams said. “I can set up the robot, do my checks, serve customers and still take care of paperwork and cleaning.”
Susemihl said a containerized version of the kitchen designed for field operations can operate with no cook on site.
“It can store roughly five to six hundred portions,” he said. “You load it on a truck or even a helicopter, keep everything cooled, and then serve troops fully automatically in minutes.”
