Amazon building computer vision tech to check defects in fruits, vegetables

The e-commerce giant's technology can carry out millions of assessments to grade the quality of fruits and vegetables per day at a cost that is far below compared to any other method

E-commerce giant Amazon is building a computer vision-based grading solution for food products such as onions and tomatoes. The machine learning-based approach analyses produce images to detect defects such as cuts, cracks and pressure damage. It can carry out millions of assessments per day at a cost that is far below compared to any other method, said a top Amazon scientist.

“Quality is one of the key drivers of fruit and vegetable purchasing decisions and a critical factor in achieving customer satisfaction,” said Rajeev Rastogi, vice president, machine learning, Amazon India at the company’s Smbhav event. “Having humans grade the quality