The UK arm of a Norway-registered company whose Thorvald robots drive through strawberry fields at night, treating plants with UV light instead of chemicals; its UK offices are in Lincoln and Yalding, Kent.
Saga Robotics makes Thorvald, a family of self-driving farm robots. In the UK the main job is protecting tabletop strawberries from powdery mildew, a fungus that can ruin a crop. At night a Thorvald robot drives itself along the rows and shines ultraviolet (UV-C) light on the plants, which helps control the disease without spraying chemicals. The robot also carries cameras that count flowers and fruit and judge ripeness, so growers get information about their crop as well as treatment. The company's own website says it can drive and treat plants on its own and sells this as a service, rather than selling the robots outright.
Saga Robotics is registered in Norway, and its founder is Professor Pal Johan From, who is described in a 2025 report as its founder and US general manager. The company's website describes its mission as sustainable farming with fewer chemicals, and says it stands for reliability, cost-effectiveness and sustainability, meaning fewer chemicals, emissions and waste. Its chief executive in 2025 was Sacha de La Noe, and in 2024 it was Anne Dingstad. We read these names in different reports, so check the current leadership on the company's site.
Saga's UK offices, listed on its website, are at Firth Road Business Centre in Lincoln and at Yalding in Kent. A 2022 report said almost all of its research and development was taking place in Lincolnshire, working with the Lincoln Agri-Robotics Centre at the University of Lincoln, and that this partnership brought it into contact with large growers. In July 2024 it added service hubs in Kent, the South and Scotland and said its robots were working for nine named growers, including New Forest Fruit Company, Angus Growers and Clock House Farm. Its website now says Thorvald treats about 30% of UK tabletop strawberries; this is the company's own claim.
On the people side, a 2025 report says the robots are watched around the clock from a remote operations centre, which tells us that the work includes operators, field technicians and data staff as well as engineers. Growers quoted on the company's site, such as a farm manager at LM Porter and a chief operating officer at WB Chambers Farms, describe the benefits in terms of less mildew. Halvard Grimstad, the head of deployment, said in 2022 that almost all of the research was happening at the University of Lincoln. We found no company statement about its working culture, so we have not described one.
Jobs at a company like this include robotics, electronics and software engineers, field service teams who look after robots at farms in the growing season, data scientists who turn crop images into useful information, and sales and customer teams who work with growers. If you are interested in engineering, computing, plant science or agriculture, this sector joins them together. The Lincoln base is also close to the university's agri-robotics work, which makes the area a useful one to follow.
Website: www.sagarobotics.com
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