New Johannesburg premises spotlight the technologies needed to improve food productivity
Leuven, Belgium, 05.03.2020 – TOMRA has opened new regional headquarters in Johannesburg to strengthen its commitment to customers in South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania. This initiative is designed to enhance customer care through even better technical support, service, and training, and to ensure prompt availability of spare parts. The move will also improve operational efficiencies by bringing together under one roof all three TOMRA business divisions: Mining, Recycling, and Food.
TOMRA’s new facilities are housed in a two-story, 1,800 square-meter building which accommodates offices, a warehouse, spare parts area, two training rooms, and three meeting rooms connected to TOMRA’s global network of more than 4,000 employees. There is also the space here to demonstrate TOMRA’s sensor-based sorting technologies. The building’s location on the edge of the Longmeadow Business Estate, Edenvale, to the north-east of Johannesburg, is conveniently close to major road networks and O.R. Tambo International Airport.
Albert du Preez, Senior Vice-President at TOMRA, commented: “This investment affirms TOMRA Food’s wholehearted and long-term commitment to South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania. These are growing markets that we take very seriously. The 26-strong team operating out of our new headquarters will support customers in South Africa and all other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
TOMRA Food’s sorting solutions are of increasing importance
TOMRA Food and the two other brands in the TOMRA Food family, BBC Technologies and Compac, offer world-class sorting and grading technologies and integrated post-harvest solutions. These include the world’s most advanced grading, sorting, peeling, and analytical technologies for fruits, nuts, vegetables, potato products, grains and seeds, dried fruit, and seafood. Such solutions are of ever-increasing importance in Africa, as they are on other continents around the world, because of the need to feed growing populations through more efficient food production.
Norman Smith, Area Sales Manager at TOMRA Food, said: “The new TOMRA premises in Johannesburg highlight our dedication to the African market, and our commitment to continue building our food division in this region. Our new offices will act as the sales and after-sales hub for Sub-Saharan Africa, and in the future potentially for the rest of Africa. Having the facilities for customer training and product demonstrations will help more food businesses in the region recognize and benefit from our world-class solutions.”
As an example of growing demand for these technologies, TOMRA’s Compac brand has witnessed dramatic growth in South Africa in the last four years primarily because of the citrus industry investing in Spectrim grading technology. This is increasing productivity on pack-out of Class 1 fruit by an average of 12%.
Compac’s Regional Director for Asia and South Africa, James Flocchini, commented: “Compac is installing a training/demo machine at the facility. This will provide for technology demonstrations and classroom training of new and existing customers to support the investments being made by citrus, avocado, apple, tomato and stone fruit packers. Training, performance and service are the keys to supporting TOMRA’s clients.”
BBC Technologies’ Sales Manager, Joshua Miers-Jones, said: “We will continue to arrange tours to grower’s facilities to showcase the technology in a commercial environment, but our new premises show the importance of the South African market and our commitment to investing in sales and support to further enhance our presence in this region.”
About TOMRA Food
TOMRA Food designs and manufactures sensor-based sorting machines and integrated post-harvest solutions for the food industry, using the world’s most advanced grading, sorting, peeling and analytical technology. Over 8,000 units are installed at food growers, packers and processors around the world for fruits, nuts, vegetables, potato products, grains and seeds, dried fruit, meat and seafood. The company’s mission is to enable its customers to improve returns, gain operational efficiencies, and ensure a safe food supply via smart, useable technologies. To achieve this, TOMRA Food operates centers of excellence, regional offices and manufacturing locations within the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and Australasia.
TOMRA Food is member of the TOMRA Group that was founded on innovation in 1972 that began with design, manufacture and sale of reverse vending machines (RVMs) for automated collection of used beverage containers. Today TOMRA provides technology-led solutions that enable the circular economy with advanced collection and sorting systems that optimize resource recovery and minimize waste in the food, recycling and mining industries.
TOMRA has ~100,000 installations in over 80 markets worldwide and had total revenues of ~8.6 billion NOK in 2018. The Group employs ~4,000 globally and is publicly listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE: TOM). For further information about TOMRA, please see www.tomra.com
Media Contacts:
Nuria Martí, Alarcon & Harris PR Avda. Ramón y Cajal, 27 28016 Madrid, Spain T: +34 91 415 30 20 E: nmarti@alarconyharris.com W: www.alarconyharris.com
Marijke Bellemans Senior Marketing Communication Coordinator TOMRA Food, Compac, and BBC Technologies Research Park Haasrode 1622 – Romeinse straat 20 3001 Leuven, Belgium T: +32 (0)16 74 28 17 M: +32 (0)476 74 19 18 E: marijke.bellemans@tomra.com W: www.tomra.com/food
