A ground-breaking AI-powered system that could revolutionise the billion-pound banana industry has been given a £100,000 boost.
OPTIcut, created by Professor David Elizondo, aims to reduce waste in the industry by improving cutting methods and helping local growers maximise profits.
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Today (March 17) Responsible AI UK – backed by Innovate UK - announced it had awarded the team funding to refine and expand its system, which uses AI and 3D image processes to help producers create the best cutting strategies for harvesting.
OPTIcut uses a combination of digital images of the fruit and machine learning to analyse the banana plants, take precise measurements and even spot damage that may not be visible to the human eye. Essentially, it gives each plant a personalised assessment to work out the best way to cut “hands” of bananas in the most efficient way.
And with an industry worth an annual £8.9billion, improved efficiency means more profits for growers and huge environment benefits. By reducing banana waste by even a small percentage, OPTIcut can have a substantial impact on carbon dioxide emissions. If they achieve their projected waste reduction of 5 to 10 percent, that could translate to millions of tons of CO2 saved annually.
The new funding will allow the team at De Montfort University (DMU) Leicester to scale up efforts and bring the technology closer to market.
The project is a collaboration between DMU, Corbana – the leading banana producing company in Costa Rice - and the University of Malaga. Over the next 12 months, the team will focus on refining the scanning, aiming to reduce the time taken to scan each ‘hand’ of bananas from six minutes to just 30 seconds.
“It’s going to be a game changer,” said Professor Elizondo. “At the moment it takes us about six or seven minutes to process the images. With this funding, we hope to get this down to 30 seconds, speeding up the cutting processes enormously.
“We’re not just reducing waste; we’re also helping producers make better decisions about everything from harvesting to logistics.”
OPTIcut has also worked with companies to develop worker training programmes to help people understand how the system works, and the benefits – reducing manual labour to create opportunities for higher-skilled roles.
OPTIcut has been supported through its development with Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF), Government money to help universities commercialise academic ideas. Professor Elizondo has also been part of the iCURE programme which supports researchers explore markets.
“Being awarded this funding is very positive, it is a vote of confidence in OPTIcut and I am over the moon because we had a third of the entire RAI UK fund nationally awarded to DMU.”
Responsible Ai UK (RAi UK) has awarded over £300,000 in funding to Enterprise Fellows, accelerating the transformation of cutting-edge research into real-world solutions that embed responsibility and trustworthiness in AI deployment.
Professor Gopal Ramchurn, RAi UK CEO, Professor of Artificial Intelligence from the University of Southampton said:
"The RAi UK Enterprise Fellowships represent our commitment to transforming groundbreaking research into tangible solutions that address real-world challenges while demonstrating a responsible approach to deploying AI. Researchers are rarely encouraged to become entrepreneurs, and this is our first step in changing that mindset. By supporting these visionary researchers, we're not just funding projects, but fostering an AI ecosystem that prioritizes ethics, accountability, and societal impact. We are extremely grateful to the Royal Academy of Engineering for supporting this initiative.”
Posted on Tuesday 18 March 2025