According to a recent UK GOVERNMENT REPORT, the agri-food sector contributed £113bn to the UK economy in 2016.
£9.2bn of that was directly from agriculture and fishing, with food and drink manufacturing making up the majority of the remainder.
50% of the food we consume in the UK is manufactured here.
To support this, the agri-food sector employed 400,000 people in 2018. A large proportion of that number are seasonal agricultural workers who spend many hours, often in harsh, cold environments – picking, sorting, peeling and cutting fruit and vegetables.
Post-harvest processing is a highly labour-intensive task, with thousands of workers doing mundane and potentially dangerous work – often with blades.
In certain parts of the UK, this is mainly an immigrant workforce. This is a cause for concern in the industry as this valuable, hardworking resource is becoming increasingly difficult to fulfil because due to recent geopolitical and economic events, people are less inclined to want to work in our fields and processing warehouses.
This is hard work, with an above-average statistic of industrial injury, particularly where sharp knives are concerned.
Scorpion Vision contributes to the agritech sector where there is a big demand to post-process fruits and vegetables as soon as they are harvested. 3D Machine Vision with colour and texture analyses can process fresh produce fast and accurately. One of the biggest challenges for the agri-food industry is the depleting workforce.
3D MACHINE VISION HAS ARRIVED in the fresh produce sector and it looks like its time has come.
Scorpion 3D Stinger systems can identify the bits of the vegetable that should be cut, accurately measuring the area to be removed and in so doing, reducing waste in the process.
Scorpion Vision Ltd will be demonstrating this technology at the forthcoming MACHINE VISION CONFERENCE taking place in Milton Keynes on the 6th June 2019. Come and see our presentations on this subject, taking place in the morning and afternoon of the event.
