Changzhou: Amid a booming wellness-oriented weight management trend in China, young entrepreneur Jiang Fangjun is busy on his unique track. He's training AI to serve health enthusiasts with fresh and high-quality light salads.
According to Namibia Press Agency, with a master's degree in computer science, Jiang tapped into the light salad sector by integrating AI technology into the production line. After years of exploration, he has cultivated an AI-featured light salad industrial chain and is gearing up to expand it into the catering field. Jiang, the CEO of Jiangsu First Farm Technology Co., Ltd., headquartered in Changzhou City, east China's Jiangsu Province, emphasized the significance of healthy food as a symbol of social progress. His company independently developed AI-specialized equipment, creating numerous job opportunities within this new industrial chain.
The light meal trend, featuring a wide variety of vegetables, particularly leafy ones, aligns with the demands of health enthusiasts both in China and globally. Jiang's ambition to realize industrial production of vegetable-based light salads tackled the key challenge of "selecting standard leaves." Inspired by innovative practices in Germany, Jiang developed AI-specialized equipment for light salads, collaborating with Jiangsu University to customize the fully automatic production lines. However, these lines were not immediately put into production but remained "under training" for over two years.
Every day, vegetables like Romaine lettuce, arugula, and cherry tomatoes were used as "models" to train the production lines. High-speed cameras captured images of these vegetables, which were then used to form stable and scientific sorting standards for light salads. This process allowed the AI-specialized equipment to accurately identify and remove flawed vegetables from the production line. The picking accuracy rate of this smart AI equipment has reached 99.99 percent, with a raw material picking rate exceeding one tonne per hour, improving the utilization rate of raw vegetables by 10 percent compared to manual sorting.
Jiang's exploration has accumulated specialized data assets for creating "standardized" light salads, safeguarding the company's foothold in the sector. This pioneering application of AI technology promotes the industry's transformation from manual labor-intensive to machine intelligence-based operations. Zhao Jianguo, manager of a Shanghai-based light salad plant, highlighted the bold attempt to use AI for sorting leaf vegetables, which are more challenging to identify and sort than fruits.
In the production process, raw vegetable materials undergo multiple rounds of sorting, disinfection, and cleaning, ensuring quality and safety. Every light salad undergoes inspection, with the final decision made by people, while AI enhances work efficiency and reduces costs. Jiang's company has established modern plants and major alliance planting bases, with an extensive planting area and significant annual light salad output.
Looking ahead, Jiang plans to open a robot-run restaurant in Changzhou City, specializing in health food with robot waiters. Despite the achievements, Jiang acknowledges the long road ahead for AI to achieve seamless production line coordination and envisions further advancements in AI-empowered production.