READING, UK, 15th Sep 2025: BigSis has been named as a 2025 Trailblazer by WIRED Consulting, recognising its ambition to provide the world’s farmers with a more sustainable, more effective means of controlling insect pests.
Born out of WIRED magazine, and sponsored by HSBC Commercial Banking, the Trailblazers programme highlights UK scale-ups who are set on positive change in their industries, developing innovative and ground-breaking technologies, and applying their discoveries to tackle urgent social, economic and environmental challenges.
“That the ‘official’ description of a Trailblazer is so apt for our own situation only serves to make this announcement even more special,” says Glen Slade, founder and CEO of BigSis.
“It’s been a long journey to realise our ambition of a chemical-free option for insect pest control but now, having overcome our remaining obstacles during the last few months, we’re ready for scaling.
“We’re proud and thrilled, as a team, to have reached this point. And having been an avid reader of WIRED for three decades, with the back issues to prove it, it feels very special to be recognised in this way.”
Underpinning the BigSis technology is AI, robotics and smart biology. Together, they’ve been combined to help farmers avoid or reduce the need to use insecticides to control insect pests in high-value fruit crops.
“Our platform uses the pest to control itself,” Glen explains, “without chemicals or GMOs.
“It’s so effective that it outperforms chemical insecticides, as proven across crops of high-value fruit like strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and cherries.”
The company’s world-first trials of its system – a reworking of the decades-old sterile insect technique (SIT), brought up-to-date and made economically viable with modern technologies – saw a suppression rate of up to 88% compared to a conventional, sprayed control.
Launched in 2022, the Trailblazer programme has recognised more than 250 scale-ups from across the UK.