As the Florida strawberry season concludes, Harvest CROO announces that its automated harvest field trials have successfully demonstrated commercial viability. Having reached performance rates on par with human harvesting in a commercial picking operation, this achievement represents a major milestone for the company.

Harvest CROO was initially founded to alleviate labour shortages. The machine in its current iteration has unlocked worlds of new possibilities by converging AI machine learning, innovative food safety technology, and advanced breeding techniques. 

“We are at the cutting edge of a new AI agricultural revolution and this technology is ready to scale,” said Gary Wishnatzki, co-founder and Wish Farms owner. “Strawberries are picked the same way they were over 100 years ago. Harvest CROO is primed to disrupt the multibillion-dollar U.S. strawberry market. The benefits are game-changing for strawberries, but its transferability to other specialty crops as well as other industries is very promising.” 

Processing power experienced a major leap forward in just the past year. With the use of the latest generation of NVIDIA chips, the platform’s vision processing capability is now a staggering 200x more powerful. This exponential jump, bundled with Harvest CROO’s 13 patents, Artificial Intelligence, and advanced robotic technology has allowed the company to attain harvesting on par with humans.

Among other advantages, the machine employs deep data analytic elements that eliminate pathogens, increase yield, improve quality, and extend shelf life. This will ultimately make healthy produce more affordable and widely available to the public. 

The machine and its technology are developed and manufactured in America. By onshoring this tech, the U.S. will benefit by having a self-sufficient labour force that will provide better, higher paying jobs at the farms. It will also greatly reduce growers’ dependence on guest workers, facilitating a food supply independent of foreign nations. 

“We started as a strawberry-picking company, but now we have evolved into an AI machine-learning and robotics-driven technology company that will enable the transformation of industries far beyond agriculture. The market potential is virtually limitless,” said Harvest CROO CEO Joe McGee. “Our proprietary tech has already demonstrated its effectiveness by picking the most complicated crop in agriculture. Now, everything else will just be an engineering problem.”

Harvest CROO is headquartered in Tampa, Florida. 

Source: Harvest CROO April 24, 2025 news release