Charles Liégeois — A Family Legacy Reaching Zero-Defect Coffee with TOMRA

A Heritage Rooted in Passion for Coffee

The Challenge: Delivering Perfect Whole-Bean Coffee 

As whole-bean coffee consumption rises worldwide, customers are increasingly demanding. Yet before TOMRA, the roastery faced: 

• Foreign objects such as stones or wood fragments 
• Quakers (under-roasted beans) and over-roasted beans 
• Taste defects due to uneven roasting 
• Customer complaints about grinders being blocked or damaged 
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To protect their heritage and their customers, the Liégeois family knew they needed to achieve zero defects — consistently. 

The Turning Point: Introducing Optical Sorting Technology 

In their pursuit of excellence, the company equipped their new roasting facility with the TOMRA 5C — and became the first in Belgium to use an optical sorter for coffee. Thanks to the expertise of our partner Schuilenburg, who designed their comprehensive coffee processing line and integrated the TOMRA 5C as a key component, the system now runs with enhanced consistency and precision. The TOMRA 5C processes up to two tons of beans per hour, ensuring perfect consistency across origins. During the testing phase, there was a defining moment that convinced the Liégeois family they had found the right technology. Benoît Liégeois recalls it with a mix of surprise and admiration — the moment the machine outperformed even their own quality control: “When we tested the TOMRA 5C in Leuven, we brought 10 kilos of coffee with exactly 50 defects that we knew were there. The machine detected 55. It found more defects than we had identified ourselves. That was the moment we realized: this technology sees what we cannot. From that point on, we knew it would guarantee the level of excellence we want in every bean.”

TOMRA: From Recurring Complaints to Zero Defects 

Since adopting the TOMRA 5C, results have been transformative: 

• 0 customer complaints 
• No more blocked grinders 
• Foreign objects eliminated 
• Perfect removal of quakers and over-roasted beans
• Visibly flawless beans, even through transparent packaging 
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Benoit Liégeois summed up the impact:  “I am blown away by the precision of the ejection. Even at high throughput, the quality is incredible — the results are simply outstanding.” 

User-Friendly, Intuitive, and Autonomous

The machine is simple to operate: 

• Only 2–3 sorting recipes needed 
• Easy adjustments depending on whole-bean or ground coffee 
• Minimal fine-tuning required 
• Operators learn fast and manage recalibration themselves 
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“Recalibration is done by our operators — it’s that easy.”