When Yatin Vrachhia moved to Bengaluru with his wife, he faced a common urban lifestyle dilemma: long work hours, little energy to cook, and a market flooded with unhealthy food options. But where most saw inconvenience, Vrachhia saw a technological opportunity. Alongside Amit Kumar Gupta and Sudeep Gupta, he launched Nosh—an AI-driven cooking robot engineered to replicate the human touch in Indian cooking with machine precision.
Launched in February, after nearly seven years of R&D, Nosh is more than a kitchen appliance—it’s a fully automated culinary system designed with ‘Culinary Intelligence’, an AI that mimics the decision-making and manual dexterity of human cooking. The system manages everything from measuring spices and stirring gravies to sautéing and timing pressure-cooking cycles—all while adapting to user preferences for spice, salt, and oil levels.
“We had to design a system that doesn’t just follow recipes, but understands the intent behind cooking actions. There’s no playbook for that—it’s a fusion of robotics, AI, thermal engineering, and good old culinary science,” explains the 40-year-old Vrachhia.
Cooking with Nosh is pretty straightforward. Select any dish through the app, load fresh ingredients into the ingredient tray as directed, and just command the robot to cook. The system features built-in storage for spices, oil, and water, ensuring precise measurements for consistent results.
“Nosh cooks just like a human—automating human motions and judgments while keeping traditional cooking methods intact. We haven‘t changed how heating or heat transfer happens or how stirring is done. Instead, we took inspiration from human cooking to develop a robot that truly cooks like a person,” explains Vrachhia. The system can be controlled remotely and offers customisation options, allowing users to adjust salt, spice, and oil levels according to personal preferences. But creating Nosh wasn’t easy.
Creating Nosh was challenging, especially due to the absence of precedents or models to follow. There were many engineering hurdles, including developing mechanisms to handle different food types and designing a universal stirrer suitable for various dishes, says 36-year-old, co-founder Amit Kumar Gupta.
Despite the odds, the team succeeded not only in developing the core product but also in scaling it for production. Nosh entered the US market in May, tapping into the diaspora’s demand for authentic home-style Indian food.
Looking ahead, the team plans to launch accessories for deep frying, searing, and steaming, potentially enabling the robot to cook items like samosas, kebabs, and momos. There’s also talk of integrating voice assistants and nutrition tracking. “We didn’t want to build a gadget; we wanted to engineer trust—in technology that feels like home,” says Vrachhia.
from Food https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/food/2025/Jun/15/bot-appétit
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