How technology and smart robotics can limit the impact of future viruses and global threats

(This article is the basis behind a recent video message (linked here) prepared for the Fresh Produce market and for different interviews held with our CCO & Founder, Richard Vialle)

COVID-19 is affecting all of us. All over the world we are being challenged by this situation. It is our firm belief that in these days, we need to collaborate to address urgent needs, and at the same time to look forward, on how we can limit the impact of future threats like these.

As a technology group at One of A Kind Technologies, we deliver automation technology within the Food, Pharma and Agriculture markets. It is our purpose that we keep serving these vital markets who ensure that people get medicines and have access to healthy food.

We would like to express our recognition and gratitude for all growers, farmers and packing centers for their unlimited commitment to bring fresh and healthy food to our tables every day.

Covid-19 has been rapidly spreading across the globe. Measures to prevent further spread are affecting the industry via demand, labor availability, logistics, and increased cost for all adaptive measures.

At KOAT and Crux Agribotics we supply technology towards the Fresh Produce markets. In this difficult time, our teams remain committed to deliver technology for harvest processing, and to ensure that vegetables and fruit can be buffered, sorted and packed in the correct way.

What COVID-19 reiterated is the dependency on global supply chains (for seeds, technology and labor). It also exposed how dependency on human labor impacts the continuity of these vital processes directly. 

It is that finding, that has driven our investments into R&D for Robotics, computer vision and deep learning to ensure a consistent, hygienic and scalable process for food producers, where  dependency on human labor can be minimized to acceptable and manageable levels.

Moving forward, we would like to invite the industry to work together with us to innovate and to define and to realize greenhouses, packing centers and production systems that are resilient for future viruses and global threats. In anticipation here of, we have increased our investments into our SortiPack® Robotics for automatic grading, sorting and packing for multiple crops.

By collaborating and sharing experiences from this crisis, we can accelerate automation where possible and develop new business models with the sector that enables them to adopt new technology in a smoother way, paying per month or per capacity used, aligned with current seasonal or variable costs. To validate feasibility jointly, we will expand our facilities for testing your products.

We are into this together, and we are willing to walk the extra mile, to work with the sector to create platforms together with technology suppliers, growers and breeders to ensure future proof systems and safe environments within the food industry.

For now, we would like to wish all of you in the industry, all the strength and perseverance needed.