Eyes on Every Leaf: How GrowUp Farms Reduced QC Labour by 50%
- Fotenix Team
- Oct 25
- 2 min read
At a glance
As GrowUp Farms scaled production to meet a boom in demand for sustainably grown lettuce, manual quality control became impractical. By deploying Fotenix, it achieved traceability of every leaf, halved manual inspection time, and improved labour efficiency by x5.
You’ll know GrowUp as one of the UK’s leading vertical farms. It’s the name behind ‘Unbeleafable’, sustainable, ready-to-eat salads stocked in major UK supermarkets.
Why Fotenix?
When GrowUp expanded operations to meet the growing demand for sustainably grown lettuce, it quickly became apparent that not all operations within the farm were easily scalable.
Up until that point, GrowUp had relied on manual inspection, which was labour-intensive and variable, and couldn’t practically keep up as operations grew.
"You can't inspect every leaf by hand. At scale, it just isn't feasible,” explains Rhydian Beynon-Davies, Head of Crop Optimisation.
GrowUp needed a solution that could maintain consistency at scale, reducing labour requirements without compromising product quality or traceability.
How we helped:
Fotenix installed an automated scanning platform directly onto GrowUp’s outlet line, integrating into the existing harvesting workflow.
Each leaf is scanned overnight using multispectral imaging, with AI models analysing form, colour, and uniformity to maintain daily oversight of crop performance.
“With Fotenix, it's like having eyes on every product, every second. We've elevated our QC game without adding complexity,” says Rhydian Beynon-Davies.
What was the impact?
The system now provides complete traceability of every product on the outlet line, with full bench-level visibility across SKUs.
What we delivered
100% of leaves on the production outlet are now traceable by bench.
50% reduction in manual labour required for quality control.
x5 improvement in labour efficiency.
