Ceres Agri-Tech to fund mushroom picking robots
Ceres Agri-Tech, a partnership between five UK universities and three agricultural research institutes, has revealed that a mushroom picking robot will be among its supported innovations.
The government-backed partnership, led by Cambridge Enterprise, aims to revolutionise the creation and uptake of early-stage agricultural technology (agri-tech) opportunities.
As one of three companies that have emerged through the collaboration, Ceres spin-out Agaricus Robotics claims its new robot will harvest ‘even the most challenging’ of dense mushroom clusters.
The innovation responds to a growing market for fresh mushrooms in the UK, currently said to be worth £450m. Picking has until now been done by hand to prevent damage to delicate mushrooms, the company said, meaning existing robotic harvesters are not suitable and current labour shortages continue to present an issue.
“In the UK alone, approximately 4,500 people are required every day to pick mushrooms – with labour costs representing a third of total production costs,” said Agaricus Robotics founder Bashir Al Diri.
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