Game set and match – connected strawberries

In a classic Wimbledon upset, Serena Williams has been knocked out by little know French contender Harmony Tan, but imagine an even bigger disaster. Imagine Wimbledon with no strawberries…

In a classic Wimbledon upset, Serena Williams has been knocked out by little know French contender Harmony Tan, but imagine an even bigger disaster. Imagine Wimbledon with no strawberries.

Fortunately that’s unlikely to be a concern thanks to Vodafone and IoT technology. They are working with Hugh Lowe Farms, the exclusive strawberry supplier to Wimbledon, to ensure the best quality crop of over 1.5 million strawberries all smothered with more than 10,000 litres of fresh cream.

Throughout the growing process, IoT technology has helped the growers make better decisions on how to protect against disease to give a better quality of strawberry, but probably of more interest to tennis fans is the IoT enabled tracker which locates each load on route to The All England Lawn Tennis Club and provides detailed feedback on temperature, collisions and vibrations in the packaging.

Nick Gliddon, Business Director, Vodafone UK said “We’re giving the Hugh Lowe Farms team invaluable new data-driven insights that make a real difference. This is a great example of how any industry can benefit from digital transformation.”

The only question remaining is whether the uninterrupted supply of strawberries continues as long as World No 1 Iga Swiatek’s unbeaten run as she clocked up a 36th consecutive win…