Robots and research tours, seminars, trade stands and state-of-the-art equipment combined to make this year’s Fruit Focus another unmissable event for anyone in the industry.

With the weather overcast but dry, there was a good attendance at the annual one-day show, which combines learning and sharing with a chance to tour a wide range of stands and chat to experts from across the industry.

As with all farming events, Fruit Focus, held at NIAB East Malling, also gives growers the chance to catch up with old friends and share ideas over a coffee.

This year’s show was no different, with a range of exhibitors old and new, an interesting line up of speakers taking part in the day’s NFU seminars and a range of tours that were free to join and covered topics including vineyard research, East Malling’s WET Centre, precision pollination in strawberries and maximising plum yield and quality.

For many visitors – and exhibitors – Fruit Focus was also a chance to pick up valuable BASIS and NRoSo points, with a team on hand to advise those present on earning points for attending, visiting selected exhibitors and attending seminars and tours.

One exhibitor that was turning heads was Reading-based Extend Robotics, whose next-generation technology highlighted the possibility of picking grapes in the rain without getting wet or of picking them from hundreds of miles away.

Robotics engineer Saksham Bhadani demonstrated the start-up company’s remotely controlled robotic picking arm using a virtual reality headset to allow him to pick up a bunch of plastic grapes while standing several metres away.

While Saksham made the process look relatively easy, the
South East Farmer editor succeeded only in crashing the arm into the table, at which it went into an impressive failsafe shutdown that called for an expert reboot.

Saksham pointed out that Extend Robotics was responsible for the software and could pair it with a variety of off-the-shelf robotic arms and other equipment. The company is currently working with Saffron Grange Vineyard and Queen Mary University of London to refine the AI-supported, human augmented virtual reality approach to grape harvesting.

Other exhibitors at the show covered everything from packaging and nutrition to machinery and integrated pest management, alongside plant nurseries, greenhouse suppliers, recruitment agencies and high-tech weeding solutions.

It was the first time at the show for Euro-Statics, which provides high quality, fully tested static caravans to farms across the UK and Europe. Founder Neil Banks said he had been impressed by the number of visitors and had already chatted to a number of existing and potential customers.

Richard Pendry, machinery sales adviser with Kirkland UK, which again brought an impressive range of machinery – and free beer – to the show, was also impressed with the turnout and with the quality of the enquiries.

On the BASIS/NRoSo stand, environment and course development manager Thomas Vaughan described it as “a busy, positive show featuring lots of tech and innovation” and also said that his sign-up  sheets revealed how multi-cultural the industry had become.

Also having a successful day was Andy Robson, from Smurfit WestRock, a company which makes sustainable punnets aimed at helping growers move away from plastic trays in order to meet increasingly high sustainability standards.

As always, the NFU Fruit Forums held as part of the Fruit Focus event were well-attended and tackled a range of topics, from calcium mobility technology to AI-powered pest monitoring and from drone-based soft and top fruit spraying to the use of coir substrates to maximise yields.

One seminar in particular, Priorities for the horticulture sector, had a special pull for many growers as it saw four of the NFU’s leading thinkers talking about the future for the industry under the Labour Government that had swept to power less than a week earlier.

All four speakers gave a well-briefed introduction to their particular special interest area, with Martin Emmett, the NFU’s horticulture and potato board chairman, pointing out the need to continue the ‘feel good’ momentum inspired by the Farm to Fork summit in May which had been somewhat dampened by the general election announcement just a week later.

Also taking part in the informative seminar (see page 54 for a full review of the presentation) were Emma Crosby, from NFU Central Affairs, NFU employment and skills adviser Tom Price and horticulture and potatoes adviser Rupert Weaver.

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