Tesco has named Swiss crop technology company AgroSustain and livestock technology developer Herd Advance as the winners of its 2026 Agri-tech Challenge, offering both businesses an opportunity to validate their technologies in commercial agricultural settings.
AgroSustain won the early-stage category with Tornado, a crop protection technology designed to improve plants’ resilience to environmental stresses including drought and salinity.
The technology uses edible ingredients to form an invisible physical barrier across a plant’s surface. By protecting crops from challenging conditions, AgroSustain says it can help reduce crop losses and conventional treatment use while supporting yields.
Crucially for the start-up, AgroSustain will receive fast-tarack introductions to Tesco’s supplier network and a trial with one of its supply-chain partners, providing an opportunity to demonstrate the technology under real-world conditions.
“Winning the Tesco Agri-tech Challenge is a fantastic recognition of our technology and validates the strong need for it within the UK,” said Olga Dubey, CEO and co-founder of AgroSustain.
“We hope this opportunity will help us bring our technology to a much larger audience, helping British agriculture to become more sustainable.”
Herd Advance gets chance to prove Stockman in Tesco beef supply chain
Herd Advance, meanwhile, claimed the late-stage award with Stockman, its automated cattle monitoring and management system.
Stockman collects health and performance information including weight, water intake and temperature in real time as cattle drink. Farmers can also use the system to remotely draft and move animals between pens, reducing the requirement for manual handling.
The company believes this can reduce labour requirements and health and safety risks while improving animal monitoring and reducing stress.
Winning the Challenge gives Herd Advance specialist mentoring from a Tesco supplier and, significantly, the opportunity to trial Stockman within Tesco’s beef supply chain.
“It’s fantastic to be recognised through the Agri-tech Challenge, particularly alongside so many other exciting innovations and companies,” said Jilly Grant, CEO and co-founder of Herd Advance.
“We’re really excited about the opportunity to access Tesco’s supply chain and partners, and ultimately to demonstrate Stockman on farms and showcase the benefits it can deliver for producers and the wider supply chain.”
From promising technology to commercial adoption
The awards illustrate the growing role large food companies can play in bridging one of agtech’s perennial gaps: moving technologies from successful development and testing into commercial adoption by farmers and supply chains.
Both winners will receive direct access to Tesco’s Sustainable Agriculture & Fisheries team, alongside connections to relevant supplier partners through innovation marketplace Leading Edge Only.
Claire Lorains, Tesco’s Group Quality, Technical and Sustainability Director, said the Challenge was one way the supermarket was helping farmers identify and develop technologies that could “help secure the future of the industry”.
Leading Edge Only CEO Jayden Halliday said that despite targeting very different agricultural problems, both technologies had demonstrated strong potential for impact.
“We’re excited to see how the opportunities provided through the Tesco Agri-tech Challenge help accelerate the development and adoption of these promising solutions,” he said.
