TOMRA Sorting Food appoints Steven Van Geel Sales Director China

Current and planned expansion across the globe has led to TOMRA Sorting Food appointing Steven Van Geel its sales director for China.

TOMRA Sorting Food is a leading provider of sensor-based sorting and processing systems for the fresh and processed food industries. The company has been developing state-of-the-art technologies, optimizing customer production flows and helping to deliver consistent, high quality output, for more than 30 years.

Mr Van Geel is an experienced industry sales professional, having joined BEST Sorting in March 2006, as sales manager for tobacco. Following that organisation’s acquisition by TOMRA six years later, Mr Van Geel has been sales manager for tobacco in the Asia-Pacific region and market unit manager for tobacco, a role he will retain.

In his new post, Mr Van Geel will oversee all sales and customer support activities, including service, application development, tests and demonstrations in China and develop the company’s local presence for its growing customer base in one of its most important expansion markets. Mr Van Geel, currently based at TOMRA Sorting Food’s global headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, will now relocate to the Xiamen/Fujian region, home to the organisation’s Chinese headquarters. In recent months, TOMRA has invested substantially in the Xiamen facilities, producing upgraded offices, stores, service, and test and demonstration space.

In addition, the company is setting up multiple service hubs in territories throughout China, where it has significant customer bases.

Expanding on his new role, Mr Van Geel said: “One of my major tasks ahead, but one which motivates me hugely to live and work in China, is the continued development of our strong and talented team there, that will drive our anticipated growth.

“We’ll continue to build a high performance sales and service team, supported domestically but closely connected to the international knowledge base of the complete TOMRA Group. I’m excited to be joining this team and looking forward to helping Chinese processors achieve greater yield, improved quality and higher productivity in their processing lines.”

Commenting on Mr Van Geel’s appointment, Ashley Hunter, senior vice-president and head of TOMRA Sorting Food, said: “The relocation of a seasoned executive, with significant experience and knowledge of the Chinese market like Steven, with his family, shows our commitment and the seriousness with which we address this market. Not only will he take our food business forward in that part of the world but he will also support our large base of tobacco customers in the region.

“Steven’s arrival in China will allow us to further execute on our strategy of local senior sales management, local sales engineering and local service, as part of our commitment towards excellent customer satisfaction.”

TOMRA Sorting Solutions creates sensor-based technologies for sorting, peeling and process analytics and unites four strong brands under one roof: TITECH for recycling, TOMRA Sorting Mining for mining, ODENBERG for food and BEST for food and raw materials. This powerful alliance makes the company one of the most advanced providers of sensor-based sorting solutions worldwide.

The alliance provides many benefits and synergies including 15 test and demo centers worldwide, access to a vast array of technologies and a large research and development department. TOMRA Sorting Solutions’ global reach also allows it to deliver an enhanced service offering, with a shared service network ensuring the company is always close to its customers. For more information visit www.tomra.com/food.