Case Study: Hippo Harvest achieves 92% water savings and 55% fertilizer reduction with Zebra AMRs

Hippo Harvest Elevates Farming Efficiency with Autonomous Mobile Robots

Hippo Harvest is a CEA (controlled environment agriculture) start-up founded in 2019 to make greenhouse farming more accessible and resilient amid labor shortages and extreme weather that undermine traditional outdoor agriculture. Facing the perception that indoor farming is costly and specialized, the company partnered with Zebra Robotics Automation to adapt Fetch100 Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) as flexible “robot tractors” that give Hippo Harvest more control and scalability.

By equipping Fetch100 AMRs with modular attachments for watering, nutrient delivery, sensing, plant movement and cleaning, Hippo Harvest eliminated complex plumbing, reduced pesticide use, and accelerated data collection for faster machine‑learning improvements. The solution maximized greenhouse uptime and productivity, cut water use by 92% and fertilizer use by 55%, produced roughly 30× more per unit area than conventional outdoor farming, and improved employee experience while lowering maintenance and downtime.

Hippo Harvest

Ivonna Dumanyan

Chief Business Officer