In this final installment of “Key Business Outlooks 2025,” Marco Colombo, Global Director of Key Accounts & Potato Expert, TOMRA Food, provides insights into the strategies that will drive the potato processing industry forward. Learn about the challenges of 2024 and how companies are positioning themselves for success in the evolving landscape of 2025.

Potato Business: Considering the market volatility, supply chain disruptions, energy costs, and workforce scarcity, what does this past year look like for your company when you draw the line?

Marco Colombo, Global Director of Key Accounts & Potato Expert, TOMRA Food: At TOMRA, when we draw the line on 2024, we turn a page on a challenging year, for all the factors that you have mentioned above. However, we are proud to say we have successfully delivered our overall objectives in the food division, and, more closely, in our beloved potato category. Big cherry on the cake, we have completed our successful integration of our Fresh and Processed divisions in one TOMRA Food. This will relevantly increase our customer proximity, which is one of our tenets at TOMRA.

What are your expectations for next year, keeping in mind the legacy of 2024, but also the current challenges?

The potato market comes from a couple of years exceptional growth, mainly driven by an acceleration of the investments in the Frozen Potato Products industry. Potato Farmers have decisively embraced the path of automatization, due to scarcity of manual labour and more and more stringent requirements in terms of food safety and food quality. Emerging markets are driving the growth. The soft spot of the exercise will be to keep supply in balance with demand.

How do you estimate the market will evolve and what is your priority list for 2025?

To begin with, AI and data will play a pivotal role in the potato category evolution. Optical sorters are one of the main data sources in the potato plants, and TOMRA has two relevant capabilities in relation to this: we are heavily investing in equipping our optical sorters with the most advanced AI, and we are the only player in the marketplace to be able offer solutions in all the sorting and peeling positions of a potato processing line – be it in fresh pack potatoes, chips, frozen potato products or dehydrated potato products.

Where did the growth opportunities come from and what is the most important lesson you have learned in recent times?

A lesson that can’t be learnt enough is that automation and technology should always start by sharply investigating the true needs of our focus customers. Clarity on those dramatically simplifies and improves the whole process of innovation, increasing the mutual satisfaction for our customers and for us. In developing our Peel to Spec and Sort to Spec solutions for the Frozen Potato Products industry we have gone through different iterations to sharpen our value proposition, and this has proven unvaluable when we have launched these solutions.

What strategies are you implementing to maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly saturated market? How do you prioritize your investments versus your R&D efforts?

TOMRA has the clear ambition to be the preferred steam peeling and optical sorting partner for our partners and customers in the whole value chain. To do this we plan to maintain and increase our relevance in solving the key needs of our customers, by bringing unrivalled solutions: Our TOMRA 3A, equipped with AI, is proving pivotal for potato farmers. Peel to Spec and Sort to Spec are two clear examples of our recent spearheading innovation in connecting multiple machines in the plant and in consistently and proactively delivering quality according to specifications at maximized yield.

What was unexpected in 2024 and how did it impact your business?

The multiple events characterizing the global geopolitical situation are well known to all of us. 2024 has seen Middle East instability, driven by the Gaza Strip conflict, the continuation of The Russia-Ukraine conflict, the USA presidential elections, and recent political uncertainty in France and Germany. TOMRA has demonstrated the ability to keep these variables under control, and we have managed to close the year according to our expectations.

Which are the most important drivers of change for your business in 2025? How do you plan to prepare for them?

Talking about external drivers, scarcity of manual labor, higher focus on sustainability, and increased added value of data and AI in the whole potato value chain are all pivotal factors accelerating investments in automation. When we come to internal drivers, our recent merging of our fresh and processed divisions into one TOMRA Food, further empowering our regions, will be a distinctive factor to be even closer to our customers.

What would you like to see happening in 2025 for your stakeholders and business environment (in terms of policy, regulations, and market) in order for your business to thrive more?

The current trends are on the one hand positive, and will add value to the whole value chain, from farm to fork: the focus on sustainability, and the keen attention to delivering consistent quality according to product specification, whilst minimizing waste and reutilizing precious potatoes to alternative value streams. On the other hand, I would welcome regulations fostering a truly global development of the potato industry, with limited artificial barriers, which have historically proven beneficial to the whole value chain.

What is your vision for the industry over the next five years, and how does your company plan to contribute to its growth?

We see further consolidation happening all over the industry, and a significant potential for further automation and optimization of the different agricultural and manufacturing processes. At TOMRA, faithful to our company vision, Leading the Resource Revolution, and to our strong heritage in potatoes, we will continue to invest in steam peeling and optical sorting solutions contributing to the sustainable and profitable business of our customers.