Labour-Saving Harvester – a hit with UK Growers!

With labour shortages being a constant battle with UK growers, we wanted to find a harvester that could help... The Air Jet Berry Harvester is your answer!

This innovative machine harvests soft fruits by air pulsations, shaking green mass by air pulsation of controlled speed/intensity allows harvesting without damaging plants or berries.

It can substitute up to 200 pickers per shift; ideal for a wide range of soft fruits including Blueberries, Raspberries, Blackberries and Blackcurrants. Partnering with manufacturer BSK, we are the the sole UK importers of these impressive harvesters.

Scott Worsley, Partner of Kirkland UK, believes this is exactly what UK Fruit Growers need:

“Our team at Kirkland are constantly on the lookout for the latest product innovations; ; bringing UK fruit growers the best machinery solutions. The Air Jet Berry Harvester is an excellent investment for fruit growers, enabling them to cut labour costs and increase their harvest yield”

Bedstone Growers saw the need for a machine like this, and are extremely impressed with the result:

“We have purchased the Kokan Blueberry Air Harvester from Kirkland UK. We have been growing blueberries for the past 12 years as members of Berry Gardens, over this period our tonnage has increased from a few tonnes per season and could surpass well over 100 tons in the next couple of years.

We have always relied on seasonal labour for hand picking, this is our only soft fruit crop and with such a short harvesting window of 6 to 8 weeks it has been challenging to find enough seasonal fruit pickers to harvest our blueberries. Last season after seeing a Kokan Air harvester working on another farm we took the decision to purchase one.

The machine arrived as promised direct to our farm and we have started using it on outdoor field grown blueberries. It has far surpassed our expectations and harvest quality of the fruit is very similar compared to hand pick, we estimate it has replaced 35 hand picking members of staff and we only require 4 operatives for the harvester, 1 driver, 2 changing crates and 1 taking fruit back to the cold store.

With any mechanical harvester there is going to be grade outs and damaged fruit, we were rightly concerned on hearing stories from competitors mechanical harvesters around the world showing 25 to 30% graded out fruit which must go for lower value processing, currently our fruit is all going for the fresh market with grade out for waste running between 3-6 %, Field losses are minimal and comparable to hand picking.

Having the backup from Kirkland's as a UK supplier and dealer was one of the main reasons along with the build and design for purchasing the Kokan Harvester, the capability of this machine will now hopefully provide us with many years of trouble free Blueberry Harvesting.” Philip Mann, Bedstone Growers.

Marko Kokanović, CEO at BSK Ltd, Serbia, Manufacturers of the Air Jet Blueberry Harvester, says that Kirkland 's experience in the UK fruit market and strong technical support together with our unique innovative solution will make breakthrough in the market.