Control for processes that cannot be undone.
We build instruments that measure a system's own response before committing an irreversible dose, and cap the run from that measurement. The first one seasons food.
SOUS, the closed-loop seasoning cell
Salt put into a dish cannot be taken out. Every automated kitchen today dispenses by recipe, and the few sensor-based systems dose toward a target using a model fitted beforehand. SOUS does something none of them do: it sends one bounded identification dose into a stirred 500 g sample of the dish, measures how this preparation responds, and sizes a hard cap on all further reagent from that measurement. The cap goes once to a separate dose executor that refuses any later increase. Overshoot is not a setting. It is not reachable.
The cell then closes the gap in small pulses, settling and measuring after each one, until two consecutive settled windows sit inside tolerance. The converged mass is mapped back to the parent pot with a dilution correction and verified with a draw.
US provisional application 64/173,854, filed October 10, 2026
Sample and stir
500 g at 40 C, conductivity and temperature probes, peristaltic brine pump.
Identify before committing
One bounded dose sized above the measured noise floor; a statistically gated settle; a ratio test against a two-sided band. Outside the band, the run halts.
Cap from the measurement
A cumulative run cap sized from the measured response, sent once to an interlocked executor that alone drives the actuators.
Converge and mirror
Sub-unity gain on the remaining mass-balance need, pulse by pulse, then a dilution-corrected transfer to the pot.
Batch kitchens
Prepared-food and commissary producers cooking soups, sauces and braises in 20 to 200 kg batches for retail, meal delivery, hospitals and schools.
Sodium targets
Producers must hold a lower salt level without losing acceptability, and no instrument tells them where "tastes right" sits for each recipe.
Any irreversible addition
Titration, water treatment, fermentation, drug infusion: wherever today's safety limits are preset rather than measured.
How we work
Design rounds, adversarial
Every design goes through structured rounds scored against nine disciplines: mechanical, electronics, food safety, controls, usability, cost, IP, business and saleability. Ten rounds turned a robot arm into a single-axis bench cell, because the arm is a commodity and the value is the control rule.
Build in-house
3D-printed functional hardware, sensor instrumentation, embedded control on microcontrollers and edge compute, a parts list the whole cell can be built from for about $1,100.
Patent first, then show
Inventions are documented and filed before they are demonstrated, so the work compounds into owned intellectual property that a licensee can adopt.
What the lab builds
| Program | Status | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| SOUS | Phase I research | Closed-loop seasoning cell. Bench characterization across dish families, conductivity against trained sensory panels, aliquot-to-pot transfer, fault discrimination of the noise-gated halt. |
| Applied AI systems | In production | Agent systems that grade coursework, answer customers and run operations for Pretium's businesses; local fine-tuning of language models on lab hardware. |
| Edge instruments | Ongoing | Sensor and actuator builds on Raspberry Pi and microcontrollers: devices that sense, decide and act, with the safety interlock pattern SOUS introduced. |
What is filed
- Application
- US provisional 64/173,854, "Closed-loop seasoning cell with in-run response identification and a measured-response dose cap," filed October 10, 2026
- Covers
- The identification dose, the measured-response cap, the noise-gated ratio halt, and the interlocked dose executor
- Licensing
- The control law is available to makers of automated cooking stations and countertop cooking robots on a probe they can add. Write to the lab.
The lab
Pretium Labs LLC is a Missouri company formed in 2026 to carry the research programs of Pretium Investments LLC into their own home. The founder, Rabiu Ahmad Rabiu, has 17 years in finance and investment strategy, teaches data analytics, databases and statistics at Webster University and Washington University in St. Louis, and worked six years as a respiratory therapist in the US Army Reserve with dosed, interlocked clinical equipment. That safety discipline is what the lab brings to processes that cannot be undone.
- Company
- Pretium Labs LLC, Missouri
- Location
- Saint Louis, Missouri
- Parent
- Pretium Investments LLC (software, financial literacy, advisory)
- Founded
- October 2026
Talk to the lab
Producers who season large batches, makers of cooking stations, sensory and controls researchers, and students who want to work on a real instrument: write to [email protected].