As loyal foodadvisor readers, you know that for us the culinary has always been the focus in recent years. Be it restaurants, hotels or the meet the chef section – in the end it’s all about enjoyment, about the joy of sharing positive experiences with you and about what’s on the plate.
Now it is however in such a way that the world keeps turning and we must look thus also more and more beyond the edge of our plates. For example, it was our concern to focus on the aspect of animal welfare and to look around how food is handled. This is how our TOMRA contribution to FRUIT LOGISTICA 2020 came about – sorting was a completely new topic for us, but if you looked closely, it was and is a very important one, closely linked to the issues of our time – especially those relating to sustainability.
After a one-year interruption, FRUIT LOGISTICA 2022 gently opened its doors – a reason for us to take a look at what has happened at TOMRA since 2020. Here comes a brief background on TOMRA, for all those reading about this company here for the first time.
TOMRA was founded by brothers Petter and Tore Planke on April 1, 1972 in Norway. A real “garage foundation” with a lot of hard work and pioneering spirit. The brothers developed the first fully automatic reverse vending machines in their garage at home, inspired to give the local grocer a way to collect empty bottles in his store in a way that minimized the manual effort for him.
This invention was quickly adopted by retailers and the efficient take-back for recycling of returnable bottles took off. A lot has happened since then and we now find TOMRA’s sorting solutions in other industries, such as the fish processing industry or even mining.
Over the decades of experience, it became apparent that TOMRA had developed another expertise – knowledge of sustainability. The desire to create sustainable value, to bring about change when it comes to optimizing yields or reducing waste, now culminates in the mission “every resource counts”.
At FRUIT LOGISTICA 2022, it was now time for Tove Andersen, President and CEO of TOMRA, and Michel Picandet, Executive Vice President and Head of TOMRA Food to announce this vision and accompanying changes. In order to optimize global food production step by step, the brand name TOMRA Food has now been given a claim for the first time: ‘Every Resource Counts’.
TOMRA will work more closely with growers, food processors and packagers to achieve its goal of making the world a better place. It was also announced that the two companies acquired by TOMRA, Compac (in 2016) and BBC-Technologies (in 2018), will now also carry the TOMRA Food brand name. This creates a new business unit – TOMRA Fresh Food – while the remaining TOMRA Food businesses become part of the TOMRA Processed Food business unit.
Of course, I had some questions about this and so I had my first interview with Ken Moynihan, CEO of TOMRA Processed Food.