TOMRA Food has presented its sorting and grading, processing and post-harvest solutions at the international Fruit Attraction trade fair held in Madrid.
The first day saw a press presentation attended by 30 national and international journalists. Roberto Ricci, recently appointed EMEA Director for TOMRA Fresh Food, the fresh produce division of TOMRA Food, welcomed the attendees.
He spoke proudly about his new European hub in Valencia, which, after several months of hard work, finally opened its doors last month. “With the new European HUB, which will open next November, we want to demonstrate TOMRA Food’s commitment to the Spanish market, which is undoubtedly a key geographical point for the European and African markets.
Roberto Ricci also highlighted the importance of the HUB for customer service. “Our local team will be centralised in Valencia, with a quality service and a spare parts centre. This new centre is a key part of our strategy in Europe and for the future of the company, which always seeks to put our customers at the centre of our activity. In addition, from here we will be able to offer a “direct to market” service, already successfully adopted in Latin America.”
TOMRA invited attendees to watch a live demonstration and details about its most successful optical sorting and grading solutions for fresh fruit: Spectrim, Inspectra2 and UltraView.
Alejandro Palacios, Head of Southern Europe at TOMRA Processed Food, the division focused on processed products at TOMRA Food, presented the sorting solutions for processed fruits and vegetables, highlighting the innovative sorters of the TOMRA 3A for unwashed potatoes and the TOMRA 5A.
The TOMRA stand also showed the team's close relationship with its European integrated business partner ICOEL, which designs and manufactures fruit handling, processing and packaging equipment. Machinery from TOMRA and ICOEL is often used by the same processing and packaging plants, especially in Europe.
Closer to customers in Europe and Latin America
TOMRA's new centre in Valencia will strengthen the company's support for fruit and vegetable packaging plants. These new facilities, which include a machinery demonstration area and a customer training area, will contribute to increasing the presence in Europe of TOMRA Food, the company that currently encompasses the Compac and BBC Technologies business.
Roberto Ricci also highlighted the importance of the citrus segment at this time: “At Fruit Attraction, in addition to offering demonstrations of the Spectrim platform, we inform European citrus packing plants about how we can help them meet their customers’ product specifications, comply with export regulations, solve problems associated with labor shortages and prepare for the future in an era of digital transformation. At TOMRA Food, we have vast experience in the citrus market. In California alone, TOMRA installs an average of 200 new lines per year in citrus packing plants. Thanks to our increased presence in Europe, we are excellently positioned to increase the number of installations here.”
TOMRA’s strategy to engage more directly with existing and potential customers has also been implemented in Latin America. There, TOMRA Food moved from an indirect, external approach to customer relations to a direct approach in March 2023.
Roberto Ricci explained: “TOMRA Food aims to become the best company in our sector and to increase its revenues through organic growth. The opening of our new site in Spain and the expansion of our site in Chile are an important part of this ambition. Our customers in these regions tell us that they want to deal directly with TOMRA, so we have hired more than 50 people to strengthen our support.”
Attention-grabbing solutions
Spectrim is the world's most powerful optical grading platform for fresh produce thanks to the use of machine learning and an effective imaging technique. Spectrim is typically installed with Inspectra², a non-invasive internal grading solution, and UltraView, which offers the best detection of defects in the stem and tip areas of the fruit. These solutions enable grading and sizing of large and small defects, including surface blemishes, insect damage, deformations and abrasions. And because grading parameters can be set to different defect levels, the Spectrim platform ensures that the right fruit goes into the right box.
The TOMRA 3A is a robust and powerful optical sorter for unwashed potatoes. It has the highest sorting capacity on the market (up to 100 tons) and provides an efficient solution for replacing manual labour with high reliability. The TOMRA 3A is now integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology and offers dual functionality. On the one hand, it removes foreign matter (stones, clods of soil, rocks, wood, bones, plastics, glass, metals and rubber) and unwanted green potatoes; on the other, it sorts by size after storage. It is also easy to install, use and maintain.
The TOMRA 5A is a high-volume grading and sorting machine that is popular with potato and other food processors. This powerful, high-performance, high-capacity machine sorts a wide range of foreign materials, with a removal rate of over 98 %. It also detects and removes misshapen or spoiled product due to rot, mould or discolouration.
TOMRA Services helps food processing and packaging plants get the most out of their machinery by calibrating solutions, training users and providing the right support at the right time – either on-site or remotely. This is made possible by TOMRA’s global network of highly trained on-site maintenance experts supported by application experts and technical support teams.
