Spend more than a few minutes with the Hectre team, and the jokes fly thick and fast. There are a lot of quips around snapping up the “low hanging” fruit market – but the passion this trio have for smarter orchards worldwide shines through.

Hectre is one of 10 new companies anointed by Vodafone xone, in the second year of the start-up accelerator programme.

Last year’s class collectively generated more than $8.5 million in new revenue, attracted $7 million in capital funding, and created 25 new jobs, all while expanding operations to 12 countries.

The trio of Menilik Dyer, Matty Blomfield and Nico Gabarra, live and breathe all things apple.

“In New Zealand the apple market has doubled in the past 3 years, it’s the fastest growing primary industry here, and globally it’s bigger than Kiwifruit. Throughout Australasia there are more than 5,000 orchards,” Menilik said.

Step one was finding out what growers wanted, with Nico the only one who’d stepped foot on an orchard previously.

“I was working on a farm in Australia and they were still using literally papers, lots of little pieces to keep track of what was being picked, and I thought mmm maybe I could create an app for that,” Nico said.

“With our tech background we were able to combine the two and make some great software,” Menilik added.

Hectre built mobile applications so that growers capture data out in the field on specially programmed devices. Mobile data entry saves an estimated $80,000 dollars in wasted time.

“One grower wasn’t convinced at first. Then he ran over a folder full of paper with data from throughout the orchard on his tractor, and pretty much mulched it. Signed up next day,” Menilik said.

The data provides a real-time heat map showing where parts of the orchard are proving more fruitful.

“A hectare’s the size of Eden Park, so if you’re growing on 100 hectares you’re essentially a hundred Eden Parks so knowing what’s going on across the orchard is almost impossible unless you digitise it,” Menilik said.

The Hectre team say that increased knowledge has seen growers gain an extra $30,000 dollars per hectare to their bottom line.

But they want to do more, and believe Vodafone’s global connectivity, and the Internet of Things is the way forward – with the help of start-up accelerator programme, Vodafone xone.

“Growers can waste $5,000 a day with one person driving around the orchard spray irrigating, because the humidity got too high, so having sensors able to automatically switch the system on will be a game changer.

“We don’t have that expertise, and that’s going to be a huge part of what we do. It’s a global market, and so is Vodafone. Having that partner set up systems for IoT networks would be amazing,” Matty said.

For Technology Director Tony Baird, the Vodafone xone start-ups represent a tide of smart innovation sweeping the world.

“Pretty soon there are going to be more IoT devices than people, and the use of sensors, big data, and analytics in the cloud is coming through strongly in this xone group. Vodafone is key to the delivery of a robust IoT network that is reliable and, just as importantly, secure,” Tony said

Ken Tunnicliffe, Enterprise Director was immediately enthusiastic.

“The whole area of precision agriculture is very well aligned to our IoT business. It’s clever to take what was paper-based, and automate that – there were immediate productivity gains. Vodafone is all about mobilising work,” Ken said

For Consumer Director, and Vodafone xone advisory board Chairman Matt Williams the ten 2017 Vodafone xone companies cover a range of spectacular solutions and ideas.

“There is a massive amount of smart design in terms of sensors, big data and analytics. There’s one company that uses artificial intelligence to enhance customer experience, in a really powerful way. We believe with Vodafone’s help these innovations have the power to change the world,” Matt said.

At Hectre, the excitement is palpable.

“Next is sensors and overlaying the data to figure out how to grow fruit better, and what can we automate. Then comes - how do we replace humans on orchards, how do we get into the robotics side of things, where a robot is picking apples?

“Right now a human can only work at maximum, 12 hours a day but with robotics you can pick all through the night 24/7, so you could get that apple off the tree and to the consumer a lot faster,” Menilik said.

“My dream is to enable orchards to produce more fruit, and increase our ability to produce food. We need to provide more food to people who can’t get what they need. There’s a lot more than can be done,” Matty added.