The development of a mushroom harvesting machine to increase yield and production while reducing waste and labour shortage risk

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"Currently, fresh mushrooms are intensively farmed and picked, trimmed and packed manually. Manual trimming introduces variability to the base of the stalk which costs farmers up to 10% wastage through unnecessary loss in weight and profit. Accurate mushroom weighing in real time i.e. as cut and packed, means punnet weights can be more accurately assessed and profits lost through over-weight tolerances can be reduced by up to 10%. Workers suffer through manual picking as the risk of cutting their hands and contaminating the punnets is high. This, along with unsociable working hours of around 7am-9pm, causes farmers to face shortages of labour.The Gamechanger mushroom cutting machine will provide accurate trimming of mushroom stalks that will improve the yield, and subsequently profit, for the farmers. Improved working conditions will be provided for workers through better hours and de-risking their roles.The ability to increase the speed of the machine and the validity of introducing a vacuum mechanism for the individual weight and packing of the mushrooms will be investigated through this project."