Harvest fresh-market blueberries and haskap without a picking crew.
NORUZ is building a battery-electric harvester for blueberry and haskap farms of 3 to 30 hectares. Under 1,800 kg, it straddles one row and needs just one operator. On a 15 ha farm it is designed to cost less than a single season of hand picking.
R&D in progress. Field trials start in June 2027 on our own haskap plantation. Pilot places for growers are open now.
- Mass, empty
- < 1,800 kg
- Ground pressure
- ≤ 0.6 kg/cm²
- Drawing
- Rear view
- The frame drives along the row, over the bush.
- Shakers gently loosen the ripe berries.
- Berries fall onto catch plates.
- Conveyors carry them to the crates.
per kilo. What hand picking costs in Poland once housing, transport and supervision are added. That's 20–30% of what fresh blueberries sell for.
Picking is the biggest cost on a fresh-berry farm, and pickers are getting harder to find.
Minimum wages rise every year: €1,153 a month in Lithuania in 2026. Polish growers now recruit pickers from Colombia, the Philippines and India, because fewer come from Ukraine.
The machines on sale don't fit a family farm. Towed harvesters bruise fruit and tie up a tractor. Self-propelled diesels weigh 4.9 to 7 tonnes. The one fresh-grade electric machine costs €350,000 to €400,000.
Sources: sadyogrody.pl (2025 picker rates), jagodnik.pl (2026 prices), FreshPlaza, manufacturer brochures.
What we're building
Engineering targets for the first production machine, each one set by a real problem on the farm. Pilot growers see the test data first.
| Target | Why it matters on your farm | |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | Under 1,800 kg | Works on soft ground after rain without rutting the inter-row. |
| Power | Battery-electric, swappable packs | A full harvest day with a charger at the field edge. No diesel fumes and no hydraulic oil above the fruit. |
| Fruit quality | 85% or more sellable as fresh | US trials with soft catching surfaces reached 85–93%. Our 2027 field trials are set up to prove it, with independent quality checks. |
| Crew | 1 person | Drives with a row-guidance steering assist and swaps the crates. |
| Transport width | 2.55 m or less | Moves between fields on a standard trailer. |
| Plantation | Rows about 3 m apart, bushes up to 2.2 m | Different rows? Tell us: the frame is being sized with pilot growers. |
| Autonomy | Optional upgrade | Ready for a row-following upgrade; you don't need it to buy or run the machine. |
Four ways to use it
The same harvesting head on different carriers, so a 4 ha farm with a tractor and a 25 ha farm without one can both use it.
| Option | For | Tractor | Crew | Target price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvest-assist cart | 1–10 ha. Two people with handheld shakers over a catching cart. | No | 2 | ~€24,000 |
| Towed e-implement | Farms with a 40 hp+ tractor. Electric head powered from the PTO. | Yes | 2 | ~€39,000 |
| Self-propelled | 10–30 ha, no tractor needed. | No | 1 | from €52,000 |
| Harvesting service | Any size. We bring the machine and operator; you pay per hectare. | No | Ours | €450/ha per pass |
Target prices excl. VAT, before subsidy. The first ten pilot growers get 15% off.
Harvesting one hectare of fresh blueberries for one season
Assuming 7 tonnes per hectare and 3 passes.
Sources: sadyogrody.pl, jagodnik.pl, Eurostat, ŽŪDC. Machine and service costs come from our own cost model; own-machine cost covers depreciation over 8 years, crew and maintenance.
And if the machine damages some fruit?
Fruit that isn't good enough for fresh sale goes to processing at a lower price. What a grower using our service still saves:
| Downgraded to processing | Saving vs hand picking |
|---|---|
| 0% | 80% |
| 10% | 65% |
| 20% | 50% |
| 35% | 28% |
Even with a third of the fruit downgraded, the grower is still well ahead; the saving only disappears at 54%. Our 2027 trials measure this first, and pilot growers see the results before anyone else.
One machine, May to September
Haskap opens the season, blueberries carry it, and currants and aronia keep the service machines busy.
From R&D to your field
Already in place
- Our own 2 ha haskap test plantation and tractor
- Business plan with sourced market data for the EU, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia
- Cost model for seven machine configurations
- Patent landscape review and design concept
- Grower survey in English, Lithuanian and Polish
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Oct 2026 – Mar 2027nowR&D and grower research: engineering design, cost model and on-farm measurements with growers in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.
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June 2027First field trials on our own 2 ha haskap plantation: shakers, catch system and fruit quality.
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July – Aug 2027Harvesting-head rig on blueberries at host farms, with independent fruit-quality checks.
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2028First pilot machines on growers' farms and first service runs.
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2029Series production and CE marking, which makes the machine eligible for farm-investment subsidy.
Ten pilot places for growers
Blueberry, haskap, currant or aronia growers in Lithuania, Latvia or Poland.
You get
- 15% off the list price of any model (first ten growers)
- Free trial runs on your rows before the machine is CE-marked
- Test results and field demos before anyone else
- A say in the design: row width, crops, power source
We ask
- 45 minutes about your last harvest: costs, rows and what went wrong.
- If you're willing, a walk along your rows to measure spacing and headlands.
- No payment, no obligation.
I grow 2 ha of haskap in Lithuania and I've worked for years as a controls and embedded-systems engineer. So the harvest problem isn't theory for me.
NORUZ tests every idea on my field first. If something doesn't work on my rows, it won't reach yours.
Vladislav Budiak, founder · LinkedIn
The team is growing. We're looking for people in mechanical engineering, agronomy and grower relations in Poland. Interested? Get in touch.
Investors and research partners: we're raising a pre-seed round in 2027. The business plan, market study and cost model are ready to share under NDA.
Questions growers ask
Can I buy a machine now?
Not yet. We're in R&D: field trials run in 2027, the first pilot machines go to growers in 2028, and series production follows CE marking. You can reserve a pilot place now.
Will it fit my plantation?
We're designing for rows about 3 m apart, 3 m headlands and bushes up to about 2.2 m. If your rows are different, tell us. That's exactly what the pilot conversations are for.
Can I get a subsidy?
In Lithuania, farms can get back 50% of the price (70% for young farmers) through the CAP farm-investment measure, once the machine is in series production and CE-marked.
Does it work on currants and aronia?
Yes. Those crops go to processing and are already machine-harvested; our service machines will work them to fill the season. Our main focus is fresh-market blueberries and haskap.
Does joining the pilot cost anything?
No. The conversation is free and commits you to nothing. If you later reserve a machine, the deposit is fully refundable until you sign a binding order.