German agritech startup Eternal.ag has introduced a modular trolley system that can be upgraded into a fully-autonomous harvesting robot
German agritech startup Eternal.ag has said that it is introducing a de-risked and accelerated pathway for greenhouse growers to adopt harvesting robots.
”As structural labour shortages demand a faster transition to automated horticulture, growers will for the first time be able to replace their trolleys with a ‘robot-ready’ model which acts as a modular building block for a fully-autonomous robot,” the group revealed.
Eternal.ag’s Trolley is a high-performance crop work tool built for any greenhouse, it said.
Engineered with the same advanced mobility as Eternal.ag’s Harvester robot, it moves omni-directionally and navigates greenhouse rows without operators needing to dismount the trolley to perform complex manouevres.
This design means that the Trolley can be later upgraded into a full Harvester robot by retrofitting the harvesting module and intelligence layer, turning it into a fully-autonomous system.
Eternal.ag explained that it is building robots to meet the structural gap created by up to 30 per cent of the greenhouse workforce in Europe leaving the industry.
“Fully-autonomous greenhouse robots are the only future-proof way to support growers to operate and scale successfully and to keep the global food system resilient, but the industry is at an early stage in the transition,” Eternal.ag’s co-founder and CEO Renji John explained.
”The Trolley allows growers to start their automation journey today risk-free by investing in future-proof greenhouse equipment that will not depreciate or become obsolete.”
The startup recently launched Harvester, a fully-autonomous robot initially developed for harvesting tomatoes.
“Trolleys are a baseline investment for any greenhouse operation, so all growers need to buy them,” Renji continued.
”The difference is that, with our Trolley, that same spend becomes a step towards automation in the future rather than a sunk cost.
”We’ve priced it in line with the market, so growers aren’t taking on any additional risk to keep the robotics option open and future proof their investment,” he added.
The Trolley is available for purchase from 1 May 2026 with delivery available within six weeks, the group confirmed.
