Technology & innovation
Ancient crop, engineered to perfection. Infrared grading, machine learning, automation and live operational data, inside a third-generation family farm business. This is farming, and it is nothing like you imagine.
- Grader
- NIR 8-lane cup
- Sorting
- Neural network
- Throughput
- 80 bulbs / sec
- Status
- First in the UK
See inside
Drag to look inside the onion.
Every bulb is read inside and out, 80 bulbs every second. Near-infrared light passes through the skin and reads the flesh, so internal breakdown and basal rot show up as a distinct signature long before the eye could ever catch it. The bad ones are tipped off the grader from their cup. Move the lens across the onion to see what the grader sees.
NIR-01 / ILLUMINATE
A beam of near-infrared light
Every bulb on the line passes through near-infrared light. It is harmless, invisible to the eye, and it does not stop at the skin.
SPEC 01 / NIR onion grader
Our Sammo/Longobardi near-infrared 8-lane electronic cup grader was the first of its kind in the UK. It sizes and weighs optically, and it identifies internal rot, external rot, skinned and stained onions using non-invasive photo-optic and 3D laser scanning, with machine learning through complex neural networks grading directly to customer specification.
The aim of the multi-million pound project was to reduce food waste through the growing, grading and packing supply chain, improve efficiency, and improve final product quality. Trials ran for three years before groundwork began in October 2013; commercial operation started in August 2014, and neural network machine learning was introduced in June 2021.
The result: a substantial decline in customer complaints, a more consistent product, and a more sustainable deal for British growers, because crop that would once have been rejected for internal rot can now be recovered.
1,200t
UK crop recovered since 2014
8
Grading lanes
3yr
Of trials before we built it
2014
Commercial operation began
SPEC 02 / The grading bench
Think you could do it by eye?
These are real inspection photographs from our own quality system. Eight onions come past you. Grade each one the way our team does: accept it if it is within a typical retail specification, reject it if it is not.
Take as long as you like. We will be timing you.
SPEC 03 / Digital transformation
Our in-house software development team has removed paper from every corner of the operation, giving us real-time data and analytics from farm to factory floor. Most ERP systems handle procurement, production, finance and dispatch; ours goes further, with deep bespoke development validating everything from raw material intake to final delivery. Built by our team, for our business. Including the website you are reading this on.
MODULE 01
Digital quality management
Every paper check on site transformed into a digital process, from check weighers and metal detectors to knife counts and engineering sign-offs, feeding automated workflows and robust corrective action protocols. Auditors can log in and see every controlled document, every reason for change, and its full history.
MODULE 02
Smart QA linked to our ERP
A custom-built QA application captures quality data across the crop's life: stored onion checks, graded product inspections, WIP and finished goods. We trend quality by grower and customer, instantly block problematic lots, and trigger corrective workflows automatically. OCR on Android QA devices verifies label and pack accuracy in real time.
MODULE 03
Industry 4.0 on the lines
OEE data capture with IoT and image-capture tools monitors multihead weighers, form-fill machines and, for the first time, onion netting machines. High-resolution cameras track each pack as it is clipped, bagged and trayed, logging miscounts, poor seals and missing labels.
MODULE 04
Seamless print accuracy
Online print software fully integrated with the ERP. Line leaders select the live production order and hit print; box-end, pack or label data flows to the right printer automatically. No manual entry. No mistakes.
SPEC 04 / Research partnerships
01 / Cranfield University KTP
Seed to shelf, measured properly.
Our three-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Cranfield University, starting summer 2026, will track over 150 parameters from seed to shelf: soil health, environmental data and storability indicators. It will not produce instant headlines, but it will build the evidence base that drives better decisions across quality, climate resilience and waste reduction.
02 / FUSED consortium
Getting ahead of crop disease.
We are a partner in FUSED, an Innovate UK and DEFRA-funded consortium developing early detection tools for crop disease, including soil diagnostics and environmental sensing in store. Specific, funded, and connected to the real agronomic challenges that will define the next generation of British onion growing.
And the people side
Our training software uses AI to surface knowledge from our own documentation and presents it to team members as short video reels, in the style of social media. Because the smartest systems in the world are only as good as the people running them.
