Antobot, an award-winning start-up providing affordable robotics for sustainable agriculture, has announced a partnership with Wilkin & Sons Ltd (Tiptree), the iconic jam and conserve producer.
Wilkin & Sons Ltd started growing fruit in the 1700s with their jam and conserve business dating back to 1885. Since then, the company has gone from strength to strength, acquiring several well-respected brands, opening tea rooms in Essex and beyond, all whilst maintaining their 850 acres of top-grade fruit. Receiving Royal recognition with a visit from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to mark the anniversary of 125 years of their jam-making, Tiptree is the best-known jam business in the UK and one of the most iconic producers worldwide.
Now sharing ownership with their employees, the team at Tiptree are striving to keep their products high quality and increasingly sustainable. They are dedicated to innovation such as through irrigation systems with reservoirs built on site and installation of the first New Growing Systems in the UK in 2016 which involve movable suspended platforms for strawberries.
The partnership with Antobot furthers projects undertaken by Tiptree in robotics for horticulture with a signed Memorandum of Understanding between the innovative companies.
Antobot develops advanced robot platforms and the digital infrastructure to provide autonomous robotic solutions to grower problems. Their first products are a scouting robot, Insight, which deploys state-of-the-art AI and algorithms to provide insight about crop yield and profile as well as a logistics robot, Assist, which aids workers by moving produce trays during harvest time. The Antobot platform is designed for flexibility with the one-of-a-kind robot brain for horticulture the Universal Robot Control Unit® enabling each robot to undertake multiple operations. Building from their successful trials in 2022, Antobot is operating pilot programs for growers across South England that wish to embed technology and robotics on their farm.
“We’re excited about getting the Antobot team working on site here at Tiptree with their robots. We look forward to the innovations which this collaboration will bring.” – Andrey Ivanov, Farm Manager Tiptree
“We are looking forward to working closely with the team at Tiptree as an iconic British brand and brilliant innovator in horticulture. We can’t wait to see how this partnership can strengthen robotics and automation for the fruit sector.” – Howard Wu, CEO & Founder Antobot