UNITED KINGDOM - They’ve made a name for themselves in vacuums. In recent years, they’ve taken the hairdryer market by storm. Technology titan Dyson’s next expanding area of focus seems to be agriculture, as evidenced by its award-winning strawberry operation.
“Sustainable food production, food security, and the environment are vital to the nation’s health and the nation’s economy; there is a real opportunity for agriculture to drive a revolution in technology and vice versa,” said Sir James Dyson, Dyson Farming Founder, in a statement on the company’s website. “Efficient, high-technology agriculture holds many of the keys to our future. Dyson Farming strives to be at the forefront of this.”
In a collaborative effort with Dyson Technology engineers, Dyson Farming has optimized UK strawberry farming with a Hybrid Vertical Growing System (HVGS) that delivers more than double the growing space in the same footprint. According to the company’s website, “each wheel hosts ten rows and, by slowly rotating, each plant has access to sunlight at periods throughout the day, supplemented by LED lights—perfect for growing out of season strawberries with exceptional quality.”
The UK farming operation includes a variety of tech-driven advantages:
- AI-powered decision support software, smart sensors, and robotic harvesters allow the company to optimize growing conditions and improve efficiency
- UV and nanobubble treatments reduce chemical use
- Vertical farming systems increase yield in the same amount of space
- LED lights simulate sunlight on darker days, working alongside climate-control and supplementary CO₂ dosing systems to grow premium out of season strawberries
- AI forecasting and precision farming ensures strawberries are picked at peak ripeness and quality
Next door to the indoor strawberry operation, the company operates an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant that transforms crops grown on the farm and waste from the glasshouse into energy, which is then delivered to the glasshouse as electricity to power LED lights and heat. Completing this circular system, waste from the AD in the form of digestate is used as fertilizer on Dyson Farming’s fields; this results in a closed-loop system that helps reduce the operation’s carbon footprint while creating the ideal environment for its crops to thrive.
Dyson Farming has received various recognitions for its ag innovation, including the title of Technology Champions at the 2025 FPC Fresh Awards, and gold in the 2025 Great British Food Awards.
