Every harvesting robot demo looks convincing. Plants are perfectly aligned, lighting is ideal, and the arm picks one truss after another. The question that matters is different: what does the robot do on a Tuesday in February, when the crop is messy and the greenhouse is crowded?
Speed is a range, not a number
Vendors quote fruit per hour. In practice that number swings with ripeness distribution, wire height and how much fruit is actually ready on a given day. A robot that picks 600 fruit per hour in a uniform crop can drop below 200 when ripeness is spread across the truss. Ask for results measured over a full cycle, not a highlight run.
Success rate is where the money is
A missed fruit is not a small failure. It is labour you still have to do, plus a fruit that may rot on the mat. We weight the miss rate more heavily than raw speed in every assessment, and we ask vendors to show it per variety and per season — not averaged across the year.
Damage shows up weeks later
Gripping force, arm speed and the transfer into the crate all leave marks. A robot that bruises shoulders or cracks the calyx will cost you in grading and complaints long after the purchase is paid off. We always check the fruit in a grading run after the pilot, not just on the day.
Cost per kilo is the only fair comparison
Divide the total cost of ownership — machine, service, spare parts, energy, and the people still needed to handle fruit — by the kilos actually harvested. That number puts a 150,000 euro harvesting robot and a team of pickers on the same line, and it is the number your bank will understand.
We have written the comparison up in a white paper covering the main tomato harvesting robots on the market. You can download it from our home page, or email us and we will send you the current version.