In the UK, broccoli is currently harvested manually, usually by teams of 7.  Between 2020 and 2024, the costs of manual workers in the UK have increased by 31.2% due to increases in the National Living Wage.

 

In addition, poor exchange rates and the consequences of Brexit have simultaneously reduced the supply of suitable workers.

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It is not just UK agricultural sector that is facing challenges with its manual labour force.  Growers in Poland, Australia, Spain, France, Italy and the USA are also reporting similar difficulties.

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Currently, growers are totally dependent

on the ability of their field workers to be able

to accurately assess the size of each head of broccoli against the customer’s specification before making the decision to cut it or leave

it in the field.

 

Field workers have just 7 seconds to make this assessment, cut the head, place it in a bin and get ready to assess the next plant.

 

Workers' ability to do this will vary and their effectiveness to do so inevitably deteriorates over a working shift.  This can lead to high levels of waste and other cost implications.