Hectre's new lab takes fruit innovation further

Knowing whether an apple looks good is one thing. Knowing how it looks inside is quite another.

It's a challenge Auckland-founded agritech company Hectre is tackling through a new research laboratory, officially opened by Agriculture Minister Hon Todd McClay on 27 October.

The facility will house a near-$5 million, three-year research programme to develop technology capable of detecting problems inside fruit without cutting it open. The Government is co-investing through the Primary Sector Growth Fund, with Hectre funding the balance.

For Hectre founder and CEO Matty Blomfield, an alumnus of the University of Auckland’s Business School and the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, it's the next step in a journey to give growers and packhouses better information about their produce before it's too late.

Hectre's existing Arc camera technology scans bins of fruit as they arrive at packhouses, providing near-instant information about size, colour and external quality.

Used by packhouses in 22 countries, the technology processes data representing billions of pieces of fruit annually, with accuracy approaching 99 percent.

But appearances can be deceiving. A piece of fruit might look perfect on the outside while concealing damage or signs that will impact how it can be stored, shipped and sold.

"Solving this is vital. Understanding the internal structures of fruit being shipped allows packhouses to make smart decisions around how to store, pack and ship their product. It reduces avoidable waste and brings value back to the growers and packhouses."

The new laboratory is developing hyperspectral imaging, an advanced camera technology that captures information from light beyond what the human eye can see.

Where an ordinary phone camera records three colours, red, green and blue, a hyperspectral camera captures many more wavelengths, including some invisible to us.

By analysing how light interacts with fruit, Hectre aims to identify internal defects and measure characteristics such as maturity, starch content and firmness through the skin.

The goal is to help packhouses decide which fruit to sell immediately, which to store and which markets it is best suited for.

The new laboratory also reflects how far Hectre's engineering capabilities have developed.

At the lab’s opening, Matty described a journey from an original camera mounted on a stick to sophisticated equipment containing around 156 components.

The advances extend beyond hardware. Hectre is increasingly incorporating 'edge processing', where the device itself analyses information rather than sending everything to external cloud services owned by third parties.

Its cameras can now automatically select the best images for analysis, reducing manual work and the need for cloud-based processing.

Developing and manufacturing technology locally also allows Hectre's team to respond quickly to findings from overseas installations, refining equipment and testing improvements in Auckland.

For the company, which closed an oversubscribed $12 million investment round earlier this year, these capabilities are important as it expands internationally and develops more of its own technology.

The research programme is targeting an algorithm capable of detecting internal defects with at least 80 percent accuracy by June 2027, followed by a prototype validated in commercial packhouse conditions by June 2028.

Hectre's expansion illustrates an opportunity for Aotearoa New Zealand to export not only high-quality produce, but also the technology that improves how food is handled around the world.

According to Engineering New Zealand, the country's agritech industry generates an estimated $2.5 billion in annual revenue from domestic and international markets. Hectre is part of this growing industry, demonstrating how New Zealand can create value not only from the food it produces, but also from the technology it develops to help growers around the world, and at home.

Matty says, "As a New Zealander, I have seen how growers and producers seem to work the hardest and get paid the least."

Hectre's progress demonstrates how technology developed in Auckland can address problems experienced by producers worldwide.

And while the laboratory's next-generation technology remains in development, its ambition is clear: to make better decisions possible before valuable fruit becomes waste.