York, Pa., March 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WellSpan Health today announced the launch of Fresh Take Eatery, a brand-new robotic dining system at WellSpan York Hospital. The AI-powered kitchen expands access to hot, healthy food choices for patients and team members at WellSpan York Hospital, offering 24/7, on-demand food service and ensuring fresh meal availability regardless of time of day.
“At WellSpan, our commitment to adopting new innovative approaches stretches beyond clinical care to benefit our visitor and team member experience,” said Roxanna Gapstur, Ph.D., R.N., president and CEO, WellSpan Health. “The launch of Fresh Take Eatery exemplifies our human-centered approach to solving operational challenges. As early adopters of technology to support the strategy of exceptional health care and personalized service, WellSpan is leading the way and living the legacy of innovation embedded in our community's DNA, making this launch a natural evolution of our region's technological heritage.”
Fresh Take Eatery addresses a capacity gap at WellSpan York Hospital by effectively doubling dining capacity during peak periods. At just 400 square feet, Fresh Take Eatery occupies a fraction of the space that would be required for a traditional kitchen expansion needed to serve the 10,000 people on campus every day. The system’s capabilities include autonomous ingredient storage and retrieval, precision cooking, automated plating and serving and self-cleaning functionality.
“As the WellSpan York Hospital campus continues to grow, the demand for food services has increased,” said Alyssa Moyer, vice president, WellSpan Health and president, WellSpan York Hospital. “Fresh Take Eatery will help meet these growing demands, providing another option for team members and visitors to find healthy, fresh meals.”
The facility complements existing dining options and can produce hundreds of made-to-order fresh meal combinations, including pasta dishes, bowls and salads. Featuring four cooking modules that can prepare food simultaneously, Fresh Take Eatery utilizes the same local ingredients currently featured in WellSpan York Hospital's cafeteria, with WellSpan dietitians involved in menu development to support healthy eating options. The system can store and manage up to 80 fresh ingredients, enabling hundreds of customized meal combinations while reducing food waste through precision portioning and demand-based preparation.
Fresh Take Eatery was developed in collaboration with leading technology companies RoboEatz and ABB Robotics and brings together WellSpan's clinical and dietary expertise, RoboEatz' culinary technology platform and advanced robotics capabilities. It marks the first deployment of RoboEatz’ Autonomous Robotic Kitchen (ARK) technology in a health care setting nationwide. WellSpan, ABB Robotics and Aramark are also strategic investors in RoboEatz, demonstrating confidence in the technology's potential to revolutionize food service across industries.
“WellSpan's Fresh Take Eatery represents a fundamental shift in how we think about institutional foodservice,” said Alex Davidkhanian, founder and board member, RoboEatz. “Traditional kitchens are constrained by labor availability, physical space and operational hours. ARK eliminates those constraints and represents an entirely new category of food infrastructure that scales with demand and operates continuously. WellSpan's success will serve as a model for how community hospital systems, colleges and more can address key workforce challenges through these innovative approaches.”
“Flexible, collaborative robotics can solve problems that traditional automation cannot, working in dynamic spaces like kitchens, alongside human co-workers and without the demands of complex programming,” said Jose Manuel Collados, manager, Product Line Service Robotics at ABB Robotics. “Our articulated robot arm at the heart of ARK handles ingredients with the dexterity of a trained chef while maintaining the consistency and traceability that health care environments demand.”
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