Birds Eye has adopted InTechnology’s new mobile communications service, called Push to Talk, which the food company says will speed up its pea harvesting process and reduce communications costs.

The technology will enable the harvesting team, based across 800 fields over a 30-mile radius in East Yorkshire, to contact one another and the factories, also based in East Yorkshire, with information regarding the loads. This is necessary to ensure the produce, once picked, is frozen quickly.

The solution comprises mobile handsets which are used like walkie-talkies, but that benefit from mobile phone technology. The handsets have GSM coverage but do not require numbers, instead a button is pushed for instant communication. Users in the field can have a one-to-one discussion or a wider team discussion with workers either in the field or at the plant.

Bird’s Eye is charged only when someone is talking into the handset, thereby reducing traditional fixed communications costs.

Information regarding loads can be broadcast to all factory workers at the same time, reducing time spent communicating and call charges as workers do not need to be contacted individually.

The company faced geographical challenges including a wide and undulating geographic area to cover, meaning in the past it was not always possible to know the location of harvesters out of range.