Visitors to PotatoEurope 2023, the outdoor exhibition for potato cultivation and machinery (Tournai, Belgium, 6-7 September), were the first to see in action the latest-generation Tomra 3A sorting machine.

Already the most effective sorter of foreign material for potatoes at harvest and out-of-storage, the Tomra 3A now takes sorting and product classification to even higher levels of accuracy by utilizing advanced AI.

On-demand demonstrations of the Tomra 3A were given at Tomra Food’s exhibition booth on both days of the PotatoEurope trade fair. Visitors to Tomra’s booth also had the opportunity to talk with four of the company’s potato specialists: Global Category Director of Potatoes, Marco Colombo; Regional Sales Managers Alain De Puydt and Peter Janssens; and Area Sales Managers Wouter Oers and Grégoire Volpoet.

Dual Functionality and Unrivaled Effectiveness

The Tomra 3A is an optical sorter with dual functionality. It removes foreign materials from the crop before storage and classifies the potatoes by size after storage. It can be used as a standalone solution or integrated into mobile trans-loaders or mechanical crop cleaners.

Now that AI is embedded in the Tomra 3A’s image processing, it evaluates pixels in a more sophisticated way when assessing objects passing down the line, seeing how pixels are shaped against each other, and looking at a cluster or an object as a whole before classifying and sorting. This makes it even better at distinguishing between potatoes and dirt clods or lumps, which other machines incorrectly see as potatoes.

The Tomra 3A’s effectiveness is matched by speed: it detects and ejects up to 90% or more of all foreign materials – such as rocks, stones, soil clods, wood, bone, plastic, glass, metal, and rubber – while handling up to 100 tons of potatoes per hour. By scanning objects with near-infrared, the Tomra 3A also removes green potatoes.

Introducing AI has also improved Tomra 3A’s ability to classify the product. Extensive validation tests have shown that, depending on flow, it can measure potatoes by width and length with 95.3% overall efficiency, output, and connectivity.

“This machine was already best-in-class, and now it’s even better. It delivers cleaner potatoes and higher yields while reducing dependence on manual labor at times of labor scarcity. It’s also easy to use, clean, and maintain. PotatoEurope was a good opportunity to demonstrate this machine’s remarkable capabilities,” Marco Colombo, Tomra’s Global Category Director for Potatoes, said.

Tomra Food designs and manufactures sensor-based sorting machines and integrated post-harvest solutions transforming global food production to maximize food safety and minimize food loss, by making sure Every Resource CountsTM.

The company has more than 13,800 units installed at food growers, packers, and processors around the world for Confectionery, Fruit, Dried fruit, Grains and Seeds, Potatoes, Proteins, Nuts, and Vegetables.

These solutions include advanced grading, sorting, peeling, and analytical technology to help businesses improve returns, gain operational efficiencies, and ensure a safe food supply.

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 a division of Tomra Group. Tomra was founded in 1972 and began with the design, manufacturing, and sale of reverse vending machines (RVMs) for the automated collection of used beverage containers.

Today, Tomra is leading the resource revolution to transform how Earth’s resources are obtained, used, and reused to enable a world without waste. The company’s other business divisions are Tomra Recycling and Tomra Collection.

Tomra has approximately 105,000 installations in over 100 markets worldwide and had total revenues of about 12bn NOK in 2022. The Group employs 5,000 globally and is publicly listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The company headquarters are in Asker, Norway.