Cedar‑processing humanoid tender in China
China’s Coconut Palm Group issued a tender for 50 humanoid robots to crack and peel coconuts at a rate of at least 360 per hour, with strict cleanliness and damage tolerances, priced at about 200k–300k RMB each and planned for deployment by October 1. Multiple robotics firms are bidding, showing a niche industrial demand for highly specialized humanoid manipulation in agricultural processing. The requirement highlights that high‑throughput, rugged manipulation in humid environments is a tangible commercial use case now. (x.com/CyberRobooo/status/2042240306465341656)
A Chinese coconut-drink company is trying to buy 50 humanoid robots for one job: crack and peel coconuts fast enough to keep up with a factory line. The bid document says each machine must handle at least 360 coconuts an hour, or about one every 10 seconds. (zhiliaobiaoxun.com) This is not a lab demo or a trade-show stunt. The tender was posted by Coconut Palm Group Hainan Coconut Juice Beverage Co., Ltd. for its industrial site in Haikou, Hainan, with bids due by April 12, 2026 and the first opening round set for April 13. (zhiliaobiaoxun.com) The job sounds simple until you picture the object. A fresh coconut is hard on the outside, slippery from juice, fibrous in the middle, and easy to ruin if a blade goes a few millimeters too deep. (baidu.com) That is why the requirements read less like a gadget ad and more like a machine-tool spec sheet. The robots must grip coconuts 8 to 15 centimeters wide, remove the shell completely, peel away the outer layer enough to expose white flesh, and keep product damage at 1 percent or less. (zhiliaobiaoxun.com) The factory also wants food-grade stainless steel, waterproof and moisture-proof electrical protection, and parts that last at least 5,000 hours. Coconut water contains sugar, so the tender explicitly calls for a design that can survive a wet, sticky production floor. (zhiliaobiaoxun.com) The “humanoid” part is the clue to why this is hard. The document asks for equipment that can simulate human movements, because peeling irregular fruit is closer to a butcher’s handwork than to a normal conveyor-belt pick-and-place task. (zhiliaobiaoxun.com) Most factory robots do best when every part arrives in the same place at the same angle. Coconuts do not cooperate like that, so the tender also asks for an artificial-intelligence control system and the ability to adapt automatically to different coconut sizes. (zhiliaobiaoxun.com) The company is not buying one prototype to test on a side table. It wants 50 units for an “unmanned, automated, intelligent” coconut-processing line, and trade coverage in China says several robotics firms are preparing bids. (zhiliaobiaoxun.com) (qq.com) Coconut Palm Group is not a startup chasing attention. The company traces its roots to the old Haikou Cannery, built in 1956, and its coconut-juice business became one of China’s best-known beverage brands after commercial expansion in the late 1980s and 1990s. (baike.baidu.com) That makes this tender more revealing than a flashy robot video. A real food manufacturer is telling the market that high-speed handlike manipulation in heat, humidity, and mess is now worth pricing, testing, and deploying on a deadline measured in months, not years. (zhiliaobiaoxun.com)
