The “Key Business Outlooks 2025” series brings you a forward-looking conversation with Thiago Roriz, Chief Operations Officer, TNA Solutions, who outlines the industry’s most pressing challenges and opportunities. Discover the key developments and strategies that will define the potato processing landscape in 2025.

Potato Business: Reflecting on 2024 (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?)

Thiago Roriz, Chief Operations Officer, TNA Solutions: The past year has brought challenges such as supply chain disruptions, rising energy costs, labor shortages and market volatility. Geopolitical tensions, including the Ukraine conflict and climate events like El Niño, have strained global food supply chains. Production costs rose by 12% per product, according to Food Engineering.

TNA responded by prioritizing supply security through its global network, spread across 30 countries, ensuring seamless access to experts, spares and technicians to customers worldwide. To further emphasize our commitment to enhancing service levels, we have strengthened our offerings with comprehensive service contracts, improved availability of parts and faster response times to support operational continuity. Innovations focused on energy efficiency, cost savings and operational resilience, helping brands offset rising expenses. Collaborative efforts with customers aimed to optimize equipment performance, reduce waste and improve yields, ensuring long-term value and reliability.

Market Evolution and Priorities (How do you estimate the market will evolve and what is your priority list for 2025?)

As challenges persist, TNA sees a growing need for single-source solutions that offer a single point of responsibility, tailored configurations and aligned visions for future trends. Automation remains a key focus as labor shortages drive demand for simpler, operator-friendly systems.

TNA’s market strategies are shaped by emerging trends, regulatory changes, market research and economic conditions. Demand for healthy snacks grows in Europe, while North America favours new flavors. Expansion prioritizes diversifying applications, from snacks to frozen foods and fresh produce. Beginning in the UK, mainland Europe and North America, TNA has expanded into Latin America, South Africa, MENA and Asia to meet evolving market needs.

Strategies for Competitive Edge ( 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?)

TNA’s complete line solutions integrate processing and packaging systems, streamlining operations, reducing downtime and ensuring high output. Strategic acquisitions, such as Florigo in 2015, have bolstered TNA’s ability to enhance existing technologies and diversify its solutions portfolio. This holistic approach aligns consumer and retailer needs with operational efficiency, ensuring sustained profitability and market leadership for our customers.

Operating in international markets presents challenges such as economic fluctuations and geopolitical issues. These experiences have underscored the importance of resilience and proactive strategic planning. TNA continuously adapts to mitigate risks, ensuring steady growth and the ability to navigate evolving market conditions effectively.

Unexpected Events in 2024 (What was unexpected in 2024 and how did it impact your business?)

Fluctuating international trade policies created challenges in tariffs and compliance. TNA’s agile business model mitigated these issues by diversifying its market presence and adapting swiftly to regulatory changes.

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

The geographic expansion will drive growth across regions, supported by TNA’s 30 offices worldwide. Product diversification remains central, with offerings ranging from VFFS systems to complete processing and packaging lines. TNA continues to explore applications in snacks, frozen foods and more, ensuring alignment with evolving customer needs.

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

Over the next five years, TNA will continue innovating solutions that improve efficiency, reduce waste and simplify processes, leading the global food industry with transformative solutions. Aligning with Industry 5.0, TNA envisions a human-centric, technologically advanced sector. Recent launches like the tna intelli-assist™, leveraging XR and digital twins, support collaborative, data-driven strategies with 95% planning accuracy and no reworks.”