A cooking device equipped in a food vending machine for cooking ingredients provided by the food vending machine has a chamber, a heating component, and a moving mechanism. The chamber extends in a straight line. The heating component and the moving mechanism are mounted in the chamber. The moving mechanism is used for moving the ingredients from the entrance to the exit. Thus, the cooking device can heat the raw ingredients until fully cooked, so the food vending machine can provide fresh and cooked-on-the-spot food. Furthermore, space in the chamber is utilized efficiently and the chamber suits for various ingredients and cooking methods. Besides, the moving mechanism is capable of moving multiple containers which contain ingredients, so the cooking device can heat multiple sets of ingredients at the same time.

A vending machine that automatically heats frozen foods, to provide customers with rapidly heated food. The vending machine has separate freezing and heating units, which are highly effective for their respective functions and yet sufficiently insulated from each other so as not to affect the quality of the food. In addition, the vending machine has a mechanism to transmit the food from the freezing to the heating unit for rapid heating, and to a pickup unit for the customer to pickup the food.

A vending machine adapted for dispensing at least one pre-packaged food product includes a microwave oven. The microwave oven includes a magnetron that emits microwave electromagnetic radiation, a housing that defines a microwave cavity for receiving the food product. The housing defines a first opening to allow passage of the pre-packaged food product between outside of the microwave cavity and inside of the microwave cavity. The microwave oven also includes a first chain door that selectively covers the first opening so as to prevent the microwave electromagnetic radiation from escaping the housing through the first opening.

A heating profile of a microwave oven is modified using microwaves at a plurality of frequencies. A power of transmission to a cavity of the microwave oven of microwaves is defined at each of the plurality of frequencies. A duration is defined for which the microwaves are transmitted at each of the plurality of frequencies. For each of the plurality of frequencies, a proportion of power input to the cavity that is not output from the cavity is measured. The measured proportions am used to modify the power of transmission at each frequency, the duration of transmission at each frequency or both.

A vending machine adapted for dispensing at least one pre-packaged food product includes a microwave oven. The microwave oven includes a magnetron that emits microwave electromagnetic radiation, a housing that defines a microwave cavity for receiving the food product. The housing defines a first opening to allow passage of the pre-packaged food product between outside of the microwave cavity and inside of the microwave cavity. The microwave oven also includes a first chain door that selectively covers the first opening so as to prevent the microwave electromagnetic radiation from escaping the housing through the first opening.

A microwave processing apparatus is provided with an oscillator, a power amplifier, a heating chamber that accommodates an object to be heated, a power feeder which is disposed on a wall surface of the heating chamber, which receives an output transmitted from a microwave generator and which radiatively feeds the microwave into the heating chamber, and a power detector that detects the power reflected from the power feeder to the power amplifier. The microwave processing apparatus determines a plurality of points of heating frequencies by using top several points of minimum point frequencies of the reflected power, and performs frequency hopping heating within a predetermined unit time.

A cooking device equipped in a food vending machine for cooking ingredients provided by the food vending machine has a chamber, a heating component, and a moving mechanism. The chamber extends in a straight line. The heating component and the moving mechanism are mounted in the chamber. The moving mechanism is used for moving the ingredients from the entrance to the exit. Thus, the cooking device can heat the raw ingredients until fully cooked, so the food vending machine can provide fresh and cooked-on-the-spot food. Furthermore, space in the chamber is utilized efficiently and the chamber suits for various ingredients and cooking methods. Besides, the moving mechanism is capable of moving multiple containers which contain ingredients, so the cooking device can heat multiple sets of ingredients at the same time.

A vending machine adapted for dispensing at least one pre-packaged food product includes a microwave oven. The microwave oven includes a magnetron that emits microwave electromagnetic radiation, a housing that defines a microwave cavity for receiving the food product. The housing defines a first opening to allow passage of the pre-packaged food product between outside of the microwave cavity and inside of the microwave cavity. The microwave oven also includes a first chain door that selectively covers the first opening so as to prevent the microwave electromagnetic radiation from escaping the housing through the first opening.

A food vending machine has a food-preparing device and a storage device. The storage device is connected with the food-preparing device and has serving openings and a transmission mechanism. The transmission mechanism has multiple loading assemblies capable of moving along a transmission route. A food-serving method includes an ordering process, a preparing process, and a serving process. A consumer may choose later pick-up and optionally specify a pick-up time. Then, if the consumer chooses later pick-up but does not specify a pick-up time, the storage device serves the meal; if the consumer chooses later pick-up and specifies a pick-up time, the food-preparing device serves the meal, but the meal will be conveyed to the storage device after a pre-set time. Thus, a waiting time of the consumer may be reduced, and a formerly ordered but not-yet-picked-up meal may not interfere with a later consumer.

Devices and methods for RF heating of food, using techniques which allow uniformity and/or controlled non-uniformity.