Place delicate toppings and garnishes on salads and chilled meals

Across salads, chilled snacking and ready meals, finishing steps involve portioning and placing delicate components - whole salad leaves, herbs, soft cooked vegetables, dressings sachets, protein pieces - into trays in a presentable arrangement. The ingredients are fragile, irregular, easily bruised, and visually graded for retail presentation. This task sits at the end of the line before sealing. It resists automation because the items deform and bruise under grip, vary in size and orientation, and demand gentle conformal placement rather than a hard pick-and-place; product appearance is a quality gate for premium own-label ranges. 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.