Honorary degree for innovative business leader

Innovative Essex business leader Chris Newenham has received an honorary degree from the University of Essex.

As Joint Managing Director of one of Essex's oldest and best-loved food producers - Wilkin and Sons of Tiptree - Mr Newenham is dedicated to investigating innovative ways to modernise the farming industry.

This vision has led Wilkin and Sons to become regular collaborators with the University of Essex on several partnerships looking to develop new technology for the benefit of the agricultural industry.

Wilkin and Sons are leaders in farm innovation, boasting the country’s first micro-pulse-irrigation system and now partnering with Essex academics to embed cutting-edge robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics into the farm operation.

Giving the oration for Mr Newenham, Professor Tracy Lawson, from the University’s School of Life Sciences, said: “We feel extremely lucky at Essex to have nurtured such a fruitful partnership on our doorstep where Chris and his team at Wilkin have collaborated with our scientists to look at how robotics and AI can be applied to the challenges of automating the agricultural sector.”

Mr Newenham came to the county of Essex from County Cork in Ireland to study an HND in Commercial Horticulture at the then Writtle College in the late 1980s. He then went on to complete Essex-accredited degrees – gaining a BSc Agriculture in 1994 and MBA in 2006.

Chris’s extensive career in the food and agriculture industry in Essex started in 2001 as a Farm Manager at Wilkin and Sons. In 2007, he became Farms Director at the same company and later took on the role of Joint Managing Director in 2016.

Professor Lawson added: “Working with Chris and his team, our scientists want to transform how food is grown efficiently using robotics and AI, and aim to make state-of-the-art agri-robotic technologies accessible to everyone.

“Thank you, Chris, for your contribution to the wider farming sector and working in partnership with Essex to take on such significant challenges within the agricultural sector. We look forward to continuing to work with you and your team for many years to come and we hope our work with you will help build a more sustainable future.”

Mr Newenham said: “I was simultaneously, stunned, delighted, humbled and hugely honoured to receive notice of my proposed award from the University of Essex. I have had a long association with the institution having been both undergraduate (BSc Ag 1994) and postgraduate (MBA 2004).

“More recently our paths have crossed again through ongoing work with multiple facets of the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering where we have been delighted to work with industry-leading academics who are working to help transform the future of our fruit production.”