TWO years on since an initial trial, a Queensland avocado packing facility has maintained its use of robots in its packing shed in order to combat the labour shortage.
Sunnyspot Packhouse and Sunnyspot Farms in Ravensbourne, north west of Brisbane, conducted trials with robotics company LYRO Robotics in 2020 involving using robots to pack avocados.
LYRO pairs artificial intelligence (AI) technology with robotic hardware to enable robots to pack fresh fruits and vegetables, including avocados, sweetpotatoes, stonefruits, zucchini and chilli peppers.
The robots combine computer vision with machine learning and robotic grasping which allows the device to see an avocado coming down the line, make a decision on how to grasp the fruit correctly, pick it up and place it into the cardboard box.
Sunnyspot Packhouse director Daryl Boardman said LYRO's robots were helping the avocado facility to overcome unprecedented labour shortages.
"This technology is what's needed to support our operations as we continue to grow," Mr Boardman said.
"It's difficult to get staff in such a competitive environment and being in a rural area also makes it that much harder.
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LYRO Robotics offers its robots as a service, enabling food producers to rent robots to meet their packing demands, seasonality and throughput volume.
The flow-on effect from closing a gap in labour availability is a drop in waste.
According to the UN Environment Programme, the food supply chain in many countries is on course to overtake farming and land use as the largest contributor to greenhouse gases (GHGs).
An estimated 14 per cent of the world's food is lost between harvest and retail, and an estimated 17pc is wasted in retail and at the consumption level.
A coalition of peak food industry bodies, the Food Supply Chain Alliance, estimated Australia's $15 billion horticulture industry was currently experiencing a labour shortage of about 10,000 individual workers.
The organisation has also calculated Australia's food supply chain is short at least 172,000 workers from paddock to plate.
LYRO chief executive officer and co-founder Dr Nicole Robinson said robotics in agriculture were becoming an absolute necessity to meet global demand for fresh fruit and vegetables.
"More than half of the food that is wasted, millions of tons, is lost directly on farm. A root cause of food waste is on-farm labour shortage," Dr Robinson said.
"There simply are not enough workers to meet packing demands worldwide."
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