News on Optical Sorters from Europe

Theme: ‘Let’s connect the potato chain in the post-coronavirus world’. 2020 will go down in history as 'the year of the coronavirus pandemic'.

TOMRA Food has appointed category expert Marco Colombo as Global Category Director Potatoes. In this role, he will strengthen the company’s relationship with the potato industry even further and consolidate its position as a thought leader in the sector.

Due to the positive response and over-subscription of virtual meetings, Bühler has decided to keep the Bühler Virtual World open at least until the end of May. Over the three days, more than 12,000 people from 132 countries visited the digital platform, around 500 private meetings are ongoing.

In just six weeks, Bühler transformed its physical interpack program into a fully digital experience. It has certainly been a very steep learning curve for the company, but one that will give Bühler’s partners and customers access to new services.

Leading UK potato and vegetable handling equipment manufacturer Tong Engineering has announced the appointment of a new Quality Manager: Denzil Phillips

Key Technology, a member of the Duravant family of operating companies, announces the promotion of Jasper Schoemaker to Sales Manager for the EMEIA Region (Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa).

Michel Picandet has been appointed Executive Vice President and Head of TOMRA Food. He joined the company on January 1st, 2020 and will be based at the TOMRA Food headquarters in Leuven, Belgium.

The scale of the global food waste problem is staggering. According to reports, 1.6 billion tons of food are lost or wasted every year, equating to a total value of $1.2 trillion being wiped from the supply chain.

Key Technology, a leading global designer and manufacturer of digital sorting, inspection, conveying and other processing equipment, has acquired Herbert Solutions, enhancing its portfolio of potato and vegetable equipment solutions.

Nicolai Prytz, sustainability and strategy director at TOMRA, has looked at how businesses, consumers and policymakers can help make the future of food sustainable.

By using the TOMRA 3A high-performance sorting machine Duchemin (Caen, France) are able to ensure their potatoes are a premium product.

TOMRA Food, junto a Compac y BBC Technologies, ambas pertenecientes al Grupo TOMRA Food,mostraron sus novedades en la Feria Internacional del Sector de Frutas y Hortalizas, FruitAttraction, que celebró su 11ª edición en IFEMA.

Daniel Leighty has been promoted to Global Vice President of Sales. Leighty is now responsible for Key’s worldwide sales organization to bring the company’s high performance digital sorting, conveying and process automation systems to the market.

TOMRA exhibits the TOMRA 5A, its avant-garde model for potato sorting. Compac’s new UltraView inspection module maximizes Spectrim’s grading performance.

Haith is set to innovate the transfer of delicate produce in pack houses and factories with the introduction of its patent-pending Pro-Flow Transfer Chute.

The world is currently wasting 1.3 billion tonnes of the food produced
for human consumption every year, which amounts to a third of all food produced for that purpose.

One of the three most cultivated and eaten food products in the world, the demand for potatoes continues to increase despite heightened uncertainty within the sector. Last year European potato production was hit by the worst drought in more than 40 years.

Growers, suppliers, grubbing demonstrations - everything to do with potatoes. That is what the latest edition of Potato Europe was all about. This year, this trade show was held in Doornik/Tournai, Belgium on 4 and 5 September.