PepsiCo and GRIMME put potato harvester training into a VR headset

A digital twin of a potato harvester developed by PepsiCo and German machinery maker GRIMME is being used to train operators to cut bruising at harvest. In pilots in Brazil and Mexico, PepsiCo reports an average 87% increase in bruise-free potatoes and a 1.7-fold reduction in severe bruising after training.

The project addresses a problem that machinery design alone cannot solve: the skill of the person in the cab. Harvester operators are often seasonal, working on remote farms or new to the equipment, and training them every year across thousands of farms and several languages has long been a bottleneck for the industry. PepsiCo, which announced the collaboration on 1 October 2026, describes bruising as one of the most persistent and expensive forms of waste in the potato supply chain, damaging crop quality and storage life and, when severe, pushing tubers out of processing specifications altogether.

A harvester you can take apart safely

The digital twin replicates the harvester’s internal mechanics and settings. Trainees can walk around the machine virtually, remove panels and experiment with adjustments that would be impractical or unsafe in a working field, observing how each setting affects the way tubers move through the machine. The training runs on VR headsets, smartphones and tablets, is available in multiple languages and can be distributed to farms anywhere in the world.

According to trade publication AgNavigator, the twin is based on GRIMME’s EVO and SE series harvesters and was built with immersive-learning specialist Altoura. Once the course is downloaded through the Altoura app, no Wi-Fi or mobile connection is needed, and desktop computers are also supported.

Reading the pilot results

The pilots, which AgNavigator reports began in 2025, measured bruising levels and operator performance before and after training. The headline figures should be read with care:

• The 87% figure is a relative increase, not percentage points. As a hypothetical illustration, a baseline of 40% bruise-free tubers would rise to around 75%. PepsiCo has not disclosed the actual baseline, so the absolute gain cannot be assessed. (Illustrative calculation only, not pilot data.)
• A 1.7-fold reduction in severe bruising equates to a fall of roughly 41%.
• No methodology has been published. The number of operators and farms, areas harvested, varieties, soil types and harvest conditions before and after training are not disclosed. Because bruising susceptibility depends heavily on soil moisture and tuber temperature, before-and-after comparisons made under different conditions could overstate or understate the effect. The figures are company data and have not been independently verified.

Rollout beyond the pilots

Following the pilots, the headsets and training have been introduced in Romania and Poland. The technology was also demonstrated at PepsiCo’s recent Global Agro University in Germany, attended by farmers from more than 35 markets.

PepsiCo’s own growers will be first in line, but the training has been made available on a non-exclusive basis, meaning other producers and companies can also use it. The partners plan to refine the modules, add languages and explore further applications of digital twins for farm machinery operators.

What the partners say

Frank Nordmann, general manager key accounts and sustainable development at GRIMME, said that training operators at scale had long been an issue for the industry and that ineffective use of harvesting equipment could prove costly. He added that the digital approach greatly expanded the company’s ability to support growers worldwide and to increase the volume of quality crop farmers could sell.

Rob Meyers, vice president of Global Agriculture at PepsiCo, said that combining GRIMME’s engineering expertise with PepsiCo’s agronomy knowledge had produced a scalable tool to improve crop quality and farmer livelihoods while reducing waste. Speaking to AgNavigator, he explained that the idea came from PepsiCo’s manufacturing operations, where digital twins were already used for operator training, and argued that the cost of VR technology was only a fraction of the revenue farmers risk losing to bruising. No cost figures were provided.

The wider picture

PepsiCo links the project to its pep+ sustainability programme, suggesting that lower harvest losses may mean fewer potatoes need to be grown, stored and transported for the same output, with potential savings in water, energy and fertiliser. This is the company’s own assessment and is not quantified.

For growers, the more immediate significance lies in the target: not the harvester itself, but the human factor that determines how well it is set up and driven. If the results hold up across a broader sample, the non-exclusive model could make this kind of simulator available well beyond PepsiCo’s supply base.

Sources

1. PepsiCo — Inside the virtual potato harvester: How PepsiCo and Grimme are helping growers protect quality and reduce waste (1 October 2026): https://www.pepsico.com/newsroom/stories/2026/inside-the-virtual-potato-harvester-pepsico-grimme-are-helping-growers-protect-quality-reduce-waste
2. AgNavigator — Creating a better potato supply chain with VR: PepsiCo, Grimme collaborate on digital harvesters (8 October 2026): https://www.agnavigator.com/Article/2026/10/08/a-virtual-potato-harvester-pepsico-grimme-collaborate-on-digital-twin/
3. Argenpapa — PepsiCo–GRIMME: Un gemelo digital de la cosechadora aumentó 87% la proporción de papas sin golpes… (2 October 2026): https://www.argenpapa.com.ar/noticia/17861-pepsico-ndash-grimme-un-gemelo-digital-de-la-cosechadora-aumento-87-la-proporcion-de-papas-sin-golpes-en-ensayos-de-brasil-y-mexico
4. Sustainability Magazine — PepsiCo & Grimme: How VR Can Cut Potato Waste by 87%: https://sustainabilitymag.com/news/pepsico-grimme-how-vr-can-cut-potato-waste-by-87
5. FreshPlaza — Virtual reality harvester training increases bruise-free potatoes by 87%: https://www.freshplaza.com/africa/article/9881067/virtual-reality-harvester-training-increases-bruise-free-potatoes-by-87/