Picking blueberries 50 times faster

It's one of the most healthy things to eat: blueberries. But it's also one of the most labor-intensive things to harvest. The fragility requires manual picking for good quality, so 10 kilos per hour per person is about the maximum yield. When you have about 14,000 kilos per hectare of yield, it's clear that you need a lot of people for the harvest period of 6 to 8 weeks. Already in 2014, the Driessen brothers from Melderslo therefore developed a kind of harvesting cart, on which brushes are mounted that gently catch the berries when they are shaken loose from the bush. That already makes harvesting a lot easier. And it laid the basis for a real harvesting robot.

When Peter Geurts with his engineering firm gets involved, he helps to make a move towards real mechanization and builds a special harvesting machine. Shaking the bushes remains the starting point for the harvesting method, but smart ways to preserve the quality of the berries and minimize loss are also being looked at.

Eye robot with soft landing gear

And now we're looking at the Harvy 500, a man-sized harvest robot from Fine Field that allows picking to be fully automated. Electrically driven and self-propelled. Crates are automatically replaced when they are full, an air current filters away leaves and twigs and the grower can continuously monitor the state of affairs thanks to the robot's internet connection. Peter Geurts and Marcel Beelen, the newest shareholder at Fine Field, gloat during the demonstration. "Did you know that a fall of 5 centimeters in height already affects the quality of the berry? That's why we have to give the berries a very soft landing."
The benefits of the robot are obvious, says Beelen. "This one machine can replace 50 pickers by picking 500 to 1000 kilos per hour with the same quality. Other harvesters have the disadvantage that the loss is quite high, 20 percent or more. The Harvy 500 halves this loss to less than 10 percent and we expect to be able to reduce that further to 5 percent. This will require more testing to fine tune and continue development."

"A soft landing is needed for the best berries"

Peter Geurts (l) and Marcel Beelen in front of Fine Field's Harvy 500

Testing in practice

In 2019, the robot was still a prototype. Beelen: "People initially thought it was unrealistic that we could build the prototype in a year. Yet we succeeded. Next step was production. By corona it was also not easy to get from prototype to product. Parts that had to come from China were delayed. As a result, we actually had no time to test the machines, harvest time was coming. Rabbit holes, water, all kinds of specific conditions in practice can influence the operation and normally you want to test and fine tune all this beforehand. Such a machine costs the grower a lot of money and really has to perform in the short period that the berries are ripe. We have therefore invested a lot of energy in service and fortunately managed to solve most of the teething problems." Still on the to-do list is better access to the data with a user-friendly portal. This too is being developed in close cooperation with the grower.

Grow steadily

There is plenty of growth potential: there is a market for about 1,000 robots in Europe and another 1,000 in North America. Moreover, the blueberry is more popular than ever with consumers. Growers are responding by increasing scale and developing new berry varieties. Still, Beelen doesn't believe in heady growth. "You can very easily throw your name away if you want to go too fast. We mainly foresee organic growth and expect to be able to sell 20 robots in Europe and 20 in North America in the coming years. To do that well, we are going to create self-managing teams for assembly and service." But make no mistake, in the longer term Fine Field does want to conquer the world. "In 10 years we will have a production site in North America, we will be the market leader in automated fresh picking and represented in all continents. We want to build a reputation as an innovative and high quality player that makes a significant contribution to sustainable operations among growers. We know there is competition, but as our Canadian partner says, we are light years ahead of the rest."

"We are light years ahead of the competition"

Investment in less worry

The robot is a hefty investment for a grower: the price ranges from 195,000 to 250,000 euros. Yet that investment is usually recouped in a few seasons, by saving on personnel and reducing losses. "Corona has made the problem of growers even more urgent: finding enough people for the harvest. That's normally already a huge challenge, and the travel restrictions made it all the more of a drama. You can imagine how much worry and work our machine takes away." The machine can deal with the different needs per picking. "Blueberries ripen unevenly, so you normally have three picks. The first one, the pre-picking, is about 15 percent of the total harvest. You then use the machine mostly manned, to be able to pick manually efficiently. The second accounts for 70 percent, where the vibrating rotors are used and the machine drives autonomously. At the third pick you collect the remaining 15 percent, where the machine goes along the rows faster and still works very precisely. The loss is therefore considerably less than with other harvesters. Because the machine is electrically powered and equipped with solar cells, the harvest is also done in an environmentally friendly way."

The harvest robot in action

Focus

It is obvious to think of application to other shrubs as well. Yet that does not have Fine Field's attention right now. "It may be something we will work on in the future, but the machine is specifically tailored to the properties of blueberries. Even within that category, use of the Harvy 500 is not for everyone. We focus on professionally organized growers with more than 15 acres. This is because a producer has to adapt his acreage and processes to the arrival of such a machine. For example, there must be a sorting line that can deal with the yield of the harvest. You also need a permanent person who is responsible for setting up the machine. Depending on the location and the type of berry, these settings vary. The grower receives all kinds of support from us for a smooth start, but must also be ready."

Limburg as innovative testing ground

Beelen is convinced that Limburg is the ideal environment for companies like Fine Field. "To get this kind of innovation off the ground, on the one hand you need specialist technical knowledge, but also the primary producers who are open to it and with whom you can experiment. Here in North Limburg, all that comes together on one postage stamp. Within a radius of 10 kilometers you will find 3 companies with whom you can build an innovative application, whereas in North America it might be possible within a radius of 100 kilometers. That means you can switch very quickly. And then, through the Brightlands Campus, you also have a very strong international network, which gives you access to companies in China, for example, to be able to start production." Fine Field also wants to help strengthen that network itself. "A Canadian university has developed an electronic berry, which you can use to do research on optimal cultivation methods. We want to start looking with Brightlands at how we can cooperate in this."
He emphasizes that this ideal testing ground is also vulnerable. "We do need to ensure that the primary producer can continue to thrive here, so that innovations can be implemented in practice. You can't have one without the other."

"Everything you need for innovation in agribusiness comes together here on one postage stamp"

World player in the region

Beelen also advocates accessible subsidy programmes to get innovative applications ready for production. "Banks are only willing to participate if the company is a step ahead and many subsidy schemes are focused on the first step of developing a prototype. And those schemes are then often also very complex, time-consuming and expensive. That inhibits." With that caveat, Beelen remains optimistic about the future. "I am convinced that we will become a global player in our field. That provides opportunities for new talent and in turn sparks new innovation. From Melderslo we will conquer the whole world!"