What is the importance of the company’s participation in the Global Cherry Summit?
For TOMRA, cherries are one of the main categories for which we produce our equipment. We are grading and packing manufacturers for fresh fruits, and cherries are a key market and category, and Chile, as we all know, is the number one export country. Therefore, participating in this event is strategic, for our customers to understand who we are and how we can help them improve their processes, as well as be their partner supplying the best technology and service for them to export to their market.
Which technologies is TOMRA bringing to Chile?
TOMRA is continuously developing new technology to reduce food waste and maximize the productivity and reliability for our customers. Thanks to these new technologies, we can deliver a more consistent quality, and our customers can be more confident and know they will provide their final customers and consumers with a healthy, safe and the best product possible. We have been developing new improvements in existing technologies to help our customers achieve these results. Additionally, we are going to release a new technology that I am sure is going to bring added value to the food chain of our customers in Chile, by increasing their throughput, maximize their products, and carrying a better product to their final costumers.
What is the comparative difference between TOMRA and their competitors?
TOMRA invests about 8% of its annual revenue on research and development. Thanks to this massive contribution in terms of expertise and resources, we have been able to provide a higher level of technology compared to what is available in the market.
We believe that one of our main advantages is that our technology can segregate the products in a better way, more accurate sizing. This can help customers to increase their returns by being able to sell better the big cherries. At the same time, we have a very customized system that allows to segregate different qualities and different classification of sizes into different clients and markets. This gives enough flexibility and business options for customers to address the cherries in different markets or investigate new ones.
Finally, we have been investing a lot in helping customers to reduce labour costs by maximizing efficiency on the line by increasing the kilos per hour, using the same if not a smaller number of people. Allowing a much easier operational system, to clean and maintain, resulting in lower costs over time compared to the systems available in the market.
