Innovation Award finalists - Part 2

United Fresh announced 48 new products as finalists for the United Fresh Produce Association’s 2019 Innovation Awards. This year’s finalists will compete in seven categories for the title of Best New Product at United Fresh 2019, June 10-12 in Chicago, where attendees will be able to vote for those winners during the trade show.

Earlier, FreshPlaza presented the finalists for Best New Fruit product and Best New Vegetable product, and today we look at the finalists for Best New Field Technology and Best New Indoor Growing Technology.

Best New Field Technology

Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) 
Stemilt Growers, LLC – Booth # 6015 
"Stemilt’s new distribution center welcomes a piece of technology they call the “brains” of the operation: the automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS). ASRS is the one-stop-shop for order fulfillment to make the process flawless and speedy, resulting in an experience that is delightful from farm to table."

Produce Plan 
Frontera Produce – Booth # 13046
"This technology enhances your supply chain data visualization, actively updates production plans, and protects your crop investment through cultural practice performance monitoring. Soil moisture, heat units and estimated harvest dates per field and lot are just a few examples of how this technology can change traditional farming."

RipeTime 
RipeTime – Booth # 18045
"RipeTime has developed world-first patented technology that measures and reports in real-time of ethylene in post-harvest operations from 1PPB. This monitoring and alerting allows post-harvest operators to make decisions to assure the quality of their fruit and assist with prioritizing the load-out operations."

SC iOn™ Trak SC1204 
CalAmp – Booth # 18025 
"The SC iOn Trak™ SC1204 eliminates the manual processes of automatically logging location and environmental condition data using a wireless gateway (fixed or mobile) that can communicate with several Bluetooth tags for transport and storage applications. The solution is reusable, which helps to increase the technology investment ROI."

Best New Indoor Growing Technology

Hoogendoorn Analytics 
Hoogendoorn America Inc. – Booth # 18045
"Our online platform for data storage and data analysis. Convert real-time data into valuable information that can give you the possibility of producing more and better. We use this information to track the growth of the plants and look for the best combination to achieve high yield production."

LivingCube™ 
Del Fresco Produce Ltd. – Booth # 12027 
"The LivingCube™ is a system of automated vertical growing machines that continuously produces living lettuce, living basil and microgreens all year long. It's powered using an off-the-grid electrical cogeneration system, which is environmentally sustainable due to its minimal footprint, reduction in greenhouse gases, usage of recycled water and pesticide-free integration."

Virgo 
Root AI – Booth # 9028 
"Root AI is building autonomous systems that care for specialty crops. Our first product, Virgo, uses the latest advancements in robotic hardware and artificial intelligence software to delicately harvest tomatoes with precision, efficiency, and dependability."

The 2019 United Fresh Innovation Awards finalists will be displayed on the trade show floor at United Fresh 2019 in Chicago, where attendees will have the opportunity to cast their votes for their favorite new and innovative products on Tuesday, June 11 and Wednesday, June 12. United Fresh will announce winners from the Main Stage on Wednesday, June 12 at 2:00 pm at Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center.

For more information:
Mary Coppola
United Fresh Produce Association
Ph: +1 (202) 303-3425
mcoppola@unitedfresh.org
www.unitedfresh.org

Publication date: 5/14/2019