Bigger Sites in Five Countries for Tomra Sorting Food
Tomra Sorting Food’s worldwide growth strategy has resulted in the opening of two brand new facilities and major investments being made at sites in three other countries.
The company’s 50-plus team at its facility in West Sacramento, California, has relocated to a new purpose-built site over 30 per cent larger than its previous building, just a month after the similarly-sized workforce in Dublin, Ireland, transferred to accommodation more than three times the size of its former premises, the company announced.
In addition, a significant extension has been completed at Tomra Sorting Food’s global headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, while the company has invested significantly at sites in India and China.
The West Sacramento-based team has moved 6.5km (four miles) from its previous 4,200 sq metre base in Seaport Boulevard to 5,600 sq metre offices in Embarcadero Drive. The relocated employees include experts in sales and application engineering, aftermarket services and finance and administration.
Tomra’s US team has been based in West Sacramento, which has been labelled “the Silicon Valley of food”, for about 15 years and in California for more than 30.
Ashley Hunter, senior vice-president and head of Tomra Sorting Food, said: “With extra space and better facilities, including test, demonstration and development areas, the new West Sacramento site will enable our US team to concentrate on developing solutions for the food industry in the region. The new premises will enable them to better serve their growing customer base in terms of sales and service.”
The Dublin workforce has moved 2km (1.25 miles) within the award-winning Citywest Business Campus, from a 767 sq metre site in Orchard Avenue to 2,410 sq metre premises in Kingswood Avenue. The team includes specialists in research and development, sales support engineering, and market and product management.
More Space
In addition, 80 of the company’s 190 employees at its global headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, now occupy a 1,600 sq metre extension to the previous 12,900 sq metre site.
Developments in Asia have included opening new sales and service offices in India, where six employees are based, for the growing market in that country. In China, it has also invested substantially at existing facilities in Xiamen, producing upgraded offices, stores, service and test and demonstration space. In addition, the company is setting up multiple service hubs in territories throughout China, where it has significant customer bases. These Chinese and Indian premises complement the company’s other Asian sites in Japan and South Korea.
Summarizing the reasons for the upgraded and new premises, Ashley Hunter said: “In all cases, they’ve been triggered by our current and planned expansion. In the US, for example, our total revenue increase has averaged almost 40 per cent per annum in recent years.
In West Sacramento and Dublin, the new sites include state-of-the-art sorting solutions centers, where customers can see live demonstrations of Tomra’s sorting, peeling and process analytics systems, and trial their own solutions. Explaining the thinking behind these facilities, Mr Hunter said: “We encourage food producers and processors to share their needs with us, so we can suggest customised solutions, directly meeting their unique requirements, from our large range of product and technology offerings.
The incorporation of a cold room in the test and demonstration area in West Sacramento would allow easy testing of individually quick frozen products by Tomra’s new Blizzard sorter, which was designed specifically for this application. He said the sorting solutions centre also contained a laboratory, where tests for aflatoxins, which the company’s technology can identify, could be conducted.
