Adobe Stock Long relegated to the packaging end of the food line, robots are now in the food processing business. We all saw the images of meat-packing plants during the height of the pandemic. The Covid-19 virus was running rampant through the workers who were operating in dense groups. And we all thought, can’t robots do this? Those who were managing the meatpacking factories were thinking the same thing. Their plants were shutting down because the virus was spreading and little could be done to effectively meet social distancing mandates. “Those companies came to us and asked, how can we do this with robots and make it economically viable?” said Mark Joppru, VP of robotics and automation at ABB.