Dutch startup Gearbox Innovations has received an investment of €300,000 from the regional investment fund UNIIQ, in order to bring a revolution in the market by implementing digitization in the grading and sorting process of fruit and vegetable produce.
Gearbox Innovations is a research and development bureau located in the Dutch Westlands. The Dutch startup has developed a grading robot which integrates vision technology with artificial intelligence to assess the quality of up to 100% of passing fruit and vegetables.
This announcement regarding the investment was made by alderman Karin Zwinkels of the Municipality of Westland in Naaldwijk, the Netherlands.
Why is there a need for the startup?
According to reports, the Netherlands produces around 5,400 million kg of vegetables and 650 million kg of fruit on a yearly basis. The fruits and vegetables pass through a chain of evaluations before the huge amount of produce reaches the market.
This chain of evaluation involves fruits and vegetables being manually scrutinized on the basis of deviations in colour and shape, as well as blemishes or damages, so as to guarantee its quality and sort it into the right quality class.
These high standards of the right quality class are set by supermarkets and other retailers. In the current scenario, where inspection of vegetable and fruit produce to assure its quality is important, the current manual inspections are prone to error and require a capacity in personnel that is impossible to achieve in a sector where staff turnover rates are high.
Know everything about GearVision’s products
In order to make the process of quality control and grading more reliable, consistent and efficient, Gearbox Innovations has developed two machines- GearVision Inspector and GearVision Sorter, which combine vision technology with artificial intelligence in order to efficiently and effectively rate and accordingly sort fresh produce.
The GearVision Inspector is a smart grading robot which performs a comprehensive quality analysis. The GearVision Sorter is an in-line solution to efficiently sort the produce as per its quality. As a whole, these two machines by Gearbox Innovations offer a complete supply chain solution which has a future proof approach to quality control and has been designed according to the needs and requirements of the quality control sector.
Moreover, the GearVision Inspector tool offers a thorough report, which provides actionable insights on how to increase the quality of the produce.
Where will be the funds utilised?
Gearbox Innovation will be implementing the funds to further develop the GearVision product line and creating more product varieties and applications in order to expand operations in the foreign markets.
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