The University of Essex reported trials of a strawberry-picking prototype at a Wilkin & Sons vertical farm in Tiptree. The October 2024 announcement described a robotic arm that picks fruit, weighs it and places it into packaging, combining tasks often assessed separately in harvesting research.
Vishwanathan Mohan and Klaus McDonald-Maier helped develop the system through a project supported by a £1.02 million Farming Innovation Programme grant. The university reported a 2.5-second strawberry-picking operation and an ambition to reduce equipment costs substantially. These figures concerned the prototype and its development targets, not a guaranteed full-shift commercial throughput or confirmed sale price. Further planned trials would examine whether the modular architecture could serve other crops.
