2023 News about TOMRAs Food processing and sorting solutions

Two recent product launches have shown how AI is changing food processing. James French, Head of Innovation at TOMRA Fresh Food, explains how AI is already adding value and why its importance will grow.

Toxic datura and nightshade weeds are more often harvested with crops such as green beans and baby leaf spinach, with the risk of getting into the final product. However, an advanced sorting technology is proving to be a game-changer. Jacob Hobbel, TOMRA Food’s Global Category Director for Vegetables & Fruits, explains how to mitigate this risk.

Scientific research into the causes and effects of growing conditions on fruit will make sorting and grading even more effective

New role to strengthen TOMRA’s global support of fresh fruit and vegetable packhouses 

Though digital technologies are still young, they are already improving operational efficiencies and have the power to help improve profitability in other ways too. Felix Flemming, Head of Digital at TOMRA Food and Recycling, explains.

With processing machinery becoming more interconnected, new business partnerships are making day-to-day operations easier at processors and packhouses. They are also accelerating the development of new solutions. Bjorn Thumas, TOMRA Food’s Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions and Partnerships, explains.

Packing lines can increase throughput, improve product quality, and enhance profitability with modern sorting and grading solutions. Tim Grieve, TOMRA Food’s Global Category Director for Kiwifruit, explains.

Guaranteeing food safety. Protecting brand reputations. Complying with product specifications. Minimizing food waste. Maximizing yields. Protecting profitability. Too many challenges for the growers, processors and packers of fresh, fresh-cut, canned, frozen and dried vegetables! Challenges which would be so much easier if foreign materials didn’t get mixed up with freshly harvested vegetables. Or if every batch of vegetables didn’t contain sub-standard product. Or if the presence of these unwanted materials on the processing line wasn’t sometimes almost impossible to detect. The good news is that optical sorting machines can deal with all these challenges. 

Here we take a brief look at the challenges currently facing avocado packhouses; how retailers’ requirements are expected to change; and why state-of-the-art sorting and grading solutions not only enhance packing efficiencies but also put packhouses in better shape for the future.

Tomatoes are one of life’s blessings. For growers, tomatoes give a high yield and are in strong demand. For consumers, tomatoes are packed with healthy antioxidants, nutrients, and vitamins. For processed food manufacturers, tomatoes add color, flavor, and natural goodness to juices, pastes, purees, sauces, and ketchup. And for food processing lines, tomatoes are a swelling revenue stream.

Today’s sorting technologies achieve an accuracy that manual sorting simply cannot. The optical sorting machines offered by industry-leader TOMRA Food can be relied upon to detect and eject foreign materials, cross-contamination, product clumping, and malformed products. And at the same time as looking over the production line like guardian angels, automated sorters also enhance product hygiene, solve labor-related challenges, increase throughput, maximize yield, and gather data that can unlock further improvements in line efficiency.

Industry experts in China applaud TOMRA for setting new standards in sorting and grading solutions with AI technology

It’s not easy for nut processors to ensure food safety or meet customers’ product specifications. For one thing, foreign material and shell fragments can get into the processing line’s product stream. For another, nuts can be damaged by both by external and internal defects which can be almost impossible to detect. There’s also the risk posed by allergens if one type of nut should unintentionally get mixed with another. Yet all of these threats have to be eliminated to protect processors and retailers from product recalls and reputational damage.
This is achievable thanks to the extraordinary effectiveness of state-of-the-art optical sorting machines.

TOMRA Food’s industry-leading sorting technologies - optical
sorting machines, application-specific modules, multi-lane sorters, and the TOMRA Insight data platform - are extraordinarily effective. And sorting solutions are now available for a wide variety of potato products - everything from potatoes just taken out of the ground or storage to fresh pack, chips (crisps), French Fries, other frozen products (such as wedges, slices, and hash browns), and dehydrated flakes and granules.

Leader in sorting, grading, and packing solutions to host industry events, show new packing line solution, and make presentations on latest technologies.

One of the most successful businessmen of all time, the American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, identified teamwork as “the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” The influential business consultant Ken Blanchard put it another way: “None of us is as smart as all of us.” In other words, even the cleverest, most focused, hardest-working people can achieve more when they collaborate with others. This is certainly true at food processing plants and packhouses, where efficiencies depend not only on the line equipment, but also on the teamwork of the people managing and operating it.

Changes in the cherries business are bringing new challenges as global demand is rising and exports are booming. Packhouses are under pressure to handle greater volumes and at the same, they must also maintain or improve product quality. There are sensor based solutions that make this possible as Benedetta Ricci Iamino, Global Category Director for Cherries at TOMRA Food, explains.

Industry leader highlights the growing importance of AI to the food industry and demonstrates its wide-ranging solutions with a holographic display

New appointment is the latest of numerous initiatives strengthening customer support in TOMRA's biggest market

Citrus packhouses are striving to meet evermore demanding quality expectations, yet must also increase quantities and improve yields. This is a tricky balancing act, but it can be done, as Clinton Jeffries, Global Category Director Citrus at TOMRA Food, explains.