Chinese military to introduce robot cooks, prevent food waste by troops

Chinese military plans to introduce robot cooks and high-efficiency energy-saving stoves to reduce labour intensity even as it launched campaign to stop food waste and cultivate thrifty habits in the military under the "clean plate" campaign launched by President Xi Jinping.

The two-million strong People's Liberation Army (PLA), the world's largest, would actively promote the application of new technologies including advanced cooking equipment such as high-efficiency energy-saving stoves, multipurpose steaming ovens and cooking robots, the PLA Daily reported on Thursday.

The above measures were aimed at improving the mechanisation and intelligence of meal making, reduce the labour intensity and energy consumption of cooking, it said.

"We should improve the cooking and processing methods, making coarse dishes fine, fine dishes exquisite and make one dish in multiple ways (not sure), eliminate over-processing and luxurious cooking, increase the number of steamed dishes, reduce the variety of deep-fried dishes and reduce the consumption of cooking oil, it said.

Also the Logistic Support Department of China's Central Military Commission (CMC), the overall high command of the PLA, has recently made arrangements to stop food waste and cultivate thrifty habits in the military by promoting several reform measures to improve the troops' food management and production, and strengthened corresponding supervisions and inspections at the same time.

China last week officially launched a new version of Clean Your Plate Campaign" flagged by President Xi, sparking speculation that the world's most populous country faces food crisis following Covid-19 pandemic.

"Different from the previous campaign, which was aimed at putting an end to officials' extravagant feasts and receptions, the 2.0 version calls for the public to stop wasting food, official media reported last week.

Under this campaign all PLA units at all levels to accelerate the pace of unified purchasing and delivering system of non-staple food, realizing the direct delivery of non-staple food to the greatest extent, and gradually expand the supply proportion of semi-finished non-staple food products.

As for troops in field training exercise or military tasks, military food supply should be the main source in form of fast-food support, to achieve the goal of reducing food loss and waste and improving support quality and efficiency at the same time, the report said.

Units at all levels should promote the standardization of daily menus, fully implement the individual serving system, it said.