Zhejiang's leading kitchen appliance giant has "drilled" into the back kitchens of restaurants, and well-known catering brands including Green Tea and Xinbailu are all using its products.
Recently, Robam Appliances announced that the transaction of participating in Zhuhai Utouch Smart Kitchen Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Utouch Smart Kitchen) with RMB 100 million of its own funds has been officially concluded. On October 27, the company's board of directors reviewed and passed the proposal, and signed an investment agreement with Utouch Smart Kitchen and its relevant parties. After the transaction is completed, Robam Appliances will hold 8.3333% of the equity of Utouch Smart Kitchen.
This investment has taken nearly a year from the signing of the letter of intent in January this year to the official implementation now. The amount is not large, but the orientation is very clear. Utouch Smart Kitchen is a high-tech enterprise focusing on the production, R&D and sales of commercial intelligent cooking robots, and has formed serialized products such as G2, G3 and G5, which are mainly oriented to B-end scenarios such as catering chains, school canteens and central kitchens.
At the same time, Robam Appliances is facing pressure on its own performance. In the first three quarters of this year, the company achieved revenue of 6.261 billion yuan, down 14.37% year on year; the net profit attributable to shareholders was 839 million yuan, down 27.53% year on year. On the one hand, the household kitchen appliance business that has been operating for many years continues to lose momentum, and on the other hand, real money is bet on the catering kitchen. The transformation path of this Zhejiang kitchen appliance giant has become clearer and clearer.
What did you get for 100 million yuan?
First, figure out exactly what this 100 million yuan bought.
Utouch Smart Kitchen launched the cooking machine project as early as 2008, and has been exploring for 18 years so far. It has deep accumulation in the B-end catering market.
Official enterprise information shows that it has cooperated with more than 2,000 restaurants, including listed catering enterprises such as Xiao Cai Yuan and Tong Qing Lou, well-known fast food brands such as Country Style Cooking and Super Yixing, as well as brands that focus on Jiangxi stir-fry such as Xiaoxiang Jiangxi and Ganxiangye that have emerged in recent years... covering formal dining and banquets, serving-style fast food, group meals, casual Chinese stir-fry and other scenarios. At present, its intelligent cooking machine can support thousands of standardized recipes shared on the cloud, and one device is equivalent to the craftsmanship of 20 chefs.
At the same time, Utouch Smart Kitchen has also developed intelligent cooking machines adapted to overseas needs to meet the demands of overseas catering brands for standardization and efficiency. At present, its products have been sold to many countries such as Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, enabling standardized production and cost reduction and efficiency improvement of Chinese, Italian, Thai, Malaysian, Spanish and other cuisines.
Image source: Zhuhai Utouch Smart Kitchen Official Account
In other words, what Robam Appliances bought is not only 8.3333% of the equity, but also the ready access of more than 2,000 restaurants and products that have been verified by the market. Utouch Smart Kitchen is good at commercial cooking machines, and Robam Appliances is good at brands and C-end supply chains, and the two sides take what they need.
The cooperation has long been more than just on paper.
In March this year, Jin Xiao, chairman of Utouch Smart Kitchen, revealed to Redc Supply Chain that Robam Appliances is carrying out a commercial kitchen project, and the cooking machine of Utouch Smart Kitchen is part of their back-kitchen solution.
And such investment is not an isolated action.
In July 2025, Robam Appliances signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Xiangke Intelligence, a cooking robot enterprise, the two sides will carry out in-depth collaboration around three directions: the design of the perception system of cooking robots, the development of commercial scenarios, and the market layout of Chinese food.
Image source: Xiangke Intelligence Official Account
Xiangke Intelligence is an enterprise focusing on innovative solutions for embodied robots in commercial service scenarios, mainly for catering and hotel scenarios. The enterprise has launched the kitchen robot workstation LAVA, the catering cross-scenario humanoid robot solution Nico, etc. Its main products include indoor and outdoor commercial service robots, smart kitchen robots, etc. Its smart kitchen robot has also obtained the first food business license for embodied intelligent robots in China.
Range hoods are not selling well, but commercial kitchens have grown by 332%
To understand why Robam Appliances turned to deploy commercial cooking machines, you must first see what it used to rely on for survival.
In the past few decades, this kitchen appliance enterprise born in Zhejiang has sent range hoods, gas stoves and other electrical appliances into the kitchens of one community after another.
Among them, the fine decoration market is an important territory for Robam Appliances. According to the real estate report of AVC (Ovi Cloud), as of December 31, 2025, the market share of the "Robam" brand in the fine decoration channel is 27.5%, ranking second in the industry.
In recent years, the real estate industry has been in a period of adjustment, and the demand for new houses has slowed down. Kitchen appliance enterprises that rely on home decoration, engineering and other channels are under pressure, and Robam Appliances is no exception.
In 2024, Robam Appliances saw revenue increase but no profit, with revenue slightly increasing by 0.10% to 11.213 billion yuan, and net profit falling 8.97% year on year to 1.577 billion yuan; in 2025, revenue fell 9.78% year on year to 10.116 billion yuan, and net profit fell 20.38% to 1.256 billion yuan; in the first three quarters of 2026, the downward momentum has not stopped, with revenue down 14.37% year on year, and net profit down 27.53% year on year.
The incremental growth brought by real estate will not come back, and C-end kitchen appliances must find a new source of demand. The catering back kitchen is exactly the logically reasonable answer - the essential capabilities of kitchen equipment are the same for household and commercial use, except that the customers have changed from families to restaurants.
Moreover, before betting on Utouch Smart Kitchen, Robam Appliances has already made achievements in the commercial kitchen track.
In August 2024, the official WeChat account of "ROBAM Commercial Kitchen" introduced Robam Appliances' smart commercial kitchen solution.
According to the introduction, this solution mainly provides one-stop, all-round overall planning and implementation for the construction of government, enterprise and commercial kitchens, covering kitchen design, equipment supply, construction and installation and after-sales service. Its customer groups include canteens of enterprises and public institutions, high-end hotels, real estate, etc.; as of 2024, it has implemented a number of cooperation cases such as military canteens, star hotels, and high-end clubs.
In the following years, Robam Appliances has taken a number of intensive actions for B-end kitchen scenarios.
In early 2025, the "Robam Commercial Kitchen Intelligent Manufacturing Base" was officially inaugurated. This move marks Robam Appliances' strategic layout of high-end manufacturing in the commercial kitchen field. At that time, Robam Appliances revealed that Robam Commercial Kitchen will promote the continuous innovation and development of smart commercial kitchen solutions, bringing more innovative and practical kitchen solutions to users.
In September 2025, Robam Appliances also invested in the establishment of Hangzhou Robam Commercial Kitchen Technology Co., Ltd. with a registered capital of 50 million yuan and a 100% shareholding ratio. Its business scope covers R&D, production and sales of kitchen appliance products.
In the first quarter of 2026, the signed amount, invoiced amount and average project price of Robam Appliances' commercial kitchen business increased by 633.58%, 286.57% and 1000.37% year on year respectively. In the first half of 2026, the sales revenue of Robam Appliances' commercial kitchen business increased by 125.5% year on year. The company also revealed that its AI cooking capability has extended from households to commercial kitchens. In addition, as of the third quarter of this year, the sales revenue of the commercial kitchen business increased by 332% year on year. At the same time, it has cooperated with chain catering brands, and worked with brands such as Xin Bailu and Green Tea to land benchmark stores.
It can be seen that Robam Appliances' early commercial kitchen customers were canteens, hotels and clubs, which was essentially an "engineering business of selling a batch of equipment". What chain catering wants is standardization, meal output efficiency, and replicability - the requirements are much higher, but once it runs through, it is a business that can be doubled and replicated according to the number of stores. The significance of Green Tea and Xin Bailu lies not in the order amount, but in the fact that Robam Appliances proved for the first time that it can serve catering brands well.
Now, the capital increase to Utouch Smart Kitchen is equivalent to adding an external engine to this curve: the self-owned commercial kitchen system does engineering and solutions, and Utouch's cooking machine does standardized production, and the two lines meet in the same back kitchen.
There is no shortage of machine sellers in the back kitchen
According to the "World Cooking Robot Industry Development Report", the penetration rate of intelligent cooking equipment of chain catering brands in 2025 has reached 40%, and it is expected that the penetration rate of cooking robots in the group meal and fast food tracks will increase to 50% by 2028. Before the penetration rate exceeds half, it is the golden period for equipment manufacturers to seize the market. Robam Appliances' current layout time is not early, but it is not too late.
But getting the admission ticket and securing a firm position are two different things.
On the one hand, it is still a problem how much of the capabilities accumulated by Robam Appliances in household kitchen appliances can be transferred to commercial back kitchens. Supply chain, manufacturing, and brand sound universal, but in fact, what the catering back kitchen needs is high-intensity continuous operation, food material loss control, and consistency of meal output quality... These are two different directions from the home kitchen. Compared with professional players who have been deeply engaged in the B-end for many years, Robam Appliances must use orders to answer what its irreplaceability is.
On the other hand, the price of cooking machine equipment may become lower and lower in the future. The cooking robot track is already full of players. When "being able to cook" becomes the standard configuration, the selling price and gross profit of the machine will be smoothed out by competition, just like what household kitchen appliances have experienced. At that time, what this track competes for is not just whether it can cook, but the things behind the machine, such as the precipitation of recipe data, the ability to transform back kitchen processes, and the degree of integration with the restaurant management system.
Therefore, the real test for Robam Appliances is: whether it can transform from a company that sells equipment to a provider of back kitchen efficiency solutions for catering enterprises. Equipment is the entry point, and data and service solutions are the real key to locking in catering brands.
100 million yuan has already knocked on the door. What needs to be proved next is probably how long it can stay in the back kitchen.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Redc Supply Chain", author: Liang Pan, editor: Jing Xue, published with authorization from 36Kr.