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A Million Strawberries: Guess the Weight
Last week marked a significant milestone at Dogtooth. Thanks to our fantastic field operations teams, we hit a groundbreaking record: one million strawberries picked this season (and counting!).
It’s not just about the number, it’s about the innovation, the technology, and the drive behind each pick. Congratulations to the entire team on this incredible achievement!
And the weight of one million strawberries? About 25 tonnes.
Freethink Documentary: The Farming Robots that will Feed the World
This interesting documentary feature was created by Freethink, who approached us late 2022 to appear in their series, “Hard Reset” which focuses on companies and people taking revolutionary approaches to help solve the world’s biggest challenges.
We had the pleasure of welcoming Director Nick Tucker and his film crew to our facility in October to take a closer look at our intelligent robots, find out what makes them unique, and to capture them in action picking fruit on a UK farm.
Dogtooth Dashes through Cambridge for a Heartfelt Cause
Yesterday 12 members of the Dogtooth team took part in the 30th edition of the fantastic #ChariotsOfFire race through the heart of Cambridge.
It was a great effort by everyone, demonstrating characteristic competitiveness, and more importantly a great reason to raise money for the fantastic Arthur Rank Hospice Charity. If you can please help them to do even more by contributing to our fundraising efforts.
Night Picking Boosts Productivity
As the nights draw in (at least for our northern hemisphere customers), we have made good use of our robots’ night picking capabilities.
This year we have been operating robots in 16 hour shifts, increasing capital utilization and maximizing productivity.
Even in Summer, night picking can be beneficial – not only because double shifting allows us to flex capacity to address production peaks but also because the shelf life of berry fruits can be extended by up to two weeks when berries are picked in cooler night time conditions.
FII Institute Invests in Dogtooth
We are thrilled to announce investment into Dogtooth by the FII Institute . Their Environment, Social, & Governance investment agenda resonated strongly with us and we are delighted to have their support as we seek to tackle the sustainability crises facing the global fruit industry.
This is the first investment by the FII into a UK business, and we are fortunate to benefit from the strong relationship between Great Britain and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
We are grateful to the Department of Trade (DIT) for facilitating introduction to the FII and to the British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Neil Crompton for hosting us in Riyadh this week and for his willingness to support our business development activities in the region.
Our thanks are also due to Tony Berkley and others at the FII for getting this deal over the line.
Robot 448’s Grand Send-Off: Celebrating Incredible Teamwork
As the final robot of our 2022 production run rolled off the line, today we took the opportunity to celebrate.
A huge thank you is due to our team for their herculean efforts to make this happen in the midst of a global supply chain crisis. Robot 448 (‘Budweiser’, in loving memory of our senior office labrador) we wish you productive picking and safe travels!
Spring Down Under: Strawberry Robots Head to Australia
It is Spring in the southern hemisphere and our strawberry picking robots are on their way to Australia!
They will arrive on site in a few weeks, ready to leave the shipping containers in which they are both transported and stored and start work.
Seasonal agricultural workers must often travel long distances to satisfy changing labour requirements. Now that robotic picking is being used to make up for the shortfall in human labour, it is an interesting irony that robots are also migrating with the changing seasons.
Unlike people they don’t need passports or visas – although they do need to be scrupulously clean to pass Australian quarantine!
Robotic Harvesting
Our strawberry picking robots work with the table-top growing systems widely used around the world. They are capable of autonomous navigation along crop rows, locating and picking ripe fruit, grading picked berries, and placing them directly into punnets.
Dogtooth is working with prospective customers around the world. As well as alleviating the growing difficulty of recruiting enough skilled picking labour, other benefits provided by robotic picking solutions are of even more interest to customers, e.g.:
• consistent picking performance throughout the working day
• grading and quality control in-situ without repeated handling
• night time picking when temperatures are lower – maximising the shelf life of picked fruit; and
• data gathering for precision crop management to optimise yields, quality and marketing.