Cold deli / grab-and-go sandwich and salad assembly

Compass operates owned grab-and-go and deli brands (e.g. Grab&Co, sandwich/salad lines) across thousands of B&I, education and healthcare sites, where chilled items are assembled by layering bread, leaves, proteins, spreads and toppings into finished products. The task requires picking and placing limp, flexible, easily-torn ingredients (lettuce, sliced fillings, bread slices), spreading or depositing soft fillings evenly, and stacking layers without compressing or tearing them. It sits at the assembly stage of a chilled-prep line ahead of packaging and labeling. It is hard for a robot because ingredients are highly deformable and non-rigid, geometry varies per piece, and successful assembly depends on gentle, compliant grasping and placement that vision cannot fully control. Labor intensity is high and the work is repetitive, making it a plausible automation target, though no Compass-specific robotics program for it is publicly stated. We identified this through our own research; we have not confirmed the specifics with the customer directly. This page is our researched read — a starting point for that conversation.