Bryan Madden - Leading the Mushroom Growing Industry with Automation, Robotics and Mycionics

Bryan Madden is the Farms Director at Champ's Fresh Farms Inc. in Langley BC Welcome to podcast # 159. I caught up with Bryan, who is a customer of Mycionics, my client. I spent the last few days at #Mushroomdays or #Mushroom Days in the Netherlands. Here are some of my questions: How did you get into mushroom farming? Can you tell me about Apex / South Mill Champs? What is the output of the farm? How many employees? What is a Drawer farm, what is that and why is it important to the conversation? 1.5 million pounds weekly , production in winnipeg lot to gain  Drawer farm, Europe is (now) learning from us NO ONE WANT to pick mushrooms, it is a really tough job. Canada's Temporary foreign workers program? Labour is a complex variable on the farm. Why automation?  Beyond the labor challenge, you are going to get a lot of data? What are some of the challenges? You are positioning your farm to be one of the most technologically advanced automated mushroom growing operations in North America.  That must be challenging and exciting. How did you learn about Mycionics? Tell me about your project.  What is the ROI of automation, from your perspective? How do you roll out automation in a farm? Is it by room? You have purchased the Mycionics Crop Scout and robotic harvester picker. Can you tell our audience what they do Your workers have to make thousands of picks (decisions) a day, how does (adding) this automation make them feel? You have committed to rolling out Crop Scouts product and you have tested others, so you believe in the technology approach from Mycionics What about the data that you are collecting? How is that going to change your operation? You are also considering robotic picking automation, a multi arm robot on order. I know that you have had some initial success with a prototype unit? How is that experience going? What have you had to do to get ready for automation? How has Mycionics been to work with? Are they responsive? What about remote support? So you are a big believer in the Mycionics approach and the Mycionics team? You know the team from Mycionics, Ryan and Stefan, are they open to your feedback? You deal with lots of automation vendors when it comes to mushroom harvesting, what has been the difference between suppliers? You are piloting technology all the time, do you have a message for these evolving suppliers? You are pretty excited about the data? Mushroom farming in Canada, why and why now? Future of mushroom farming is automated, would you agree? Is there anything that separates mycionics, have they done anything special  innovation Robotics and automation are not perfected in the lab, it is in the barn. It needs people like you open to fail and to iterate. Thanks for coming onto the podcast. Thanks for all you do for the industry! Did we forget to talk about anything? If you would like to get in touch with Bryan here is his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-madden-b12a9329/ https://www.mycionics.com Stefan Glibetic is president of Mycionics based out of Kitchener/Waterloo, ON My friend is in charge of sales and growth at Mycionics is Ryan McCartney: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryandoesdeals/ If you would like to get in touch with us at THE robot industry podcast, you can find me, Jim Beretta...