Compac announced the launch of its next generation sorting platform

Compac, part of the TOMRA Food family, has redesigned its Multi Lane Sorter from the ground up by launching an advanced sorting platform in the industry. The TOMRA 5S Advanced is a platform designed for hygienic operation with toolless cleaning and sanitization, using the latest principles in hygiene equipment design. With its advanced connectivity, it has the potential to become the digital heart of the packhouse, to meet and exceed the evolving needs of the industry, and future proofing customers' businesses for the next 10 - 20 years.

The manufacturer states that TOMRA 5S Advanced gently handles products and at the same time guarantees food and people safety, throughput and cost of ownership.

Ken Moynihan, CEO at Compac, said, “We gave our engineers the challenge to deliver a step-change in food hygiene and increased efficiency while improving further on our food handling and value-for-money proposition. Creating a design to satisfy any of these challenges individually would be easy. You can simply slow a machine down to improve handling or add unhygienic padding to improve gentle handling but we were not happy with just two. We wanted to reshape the paradigm. The machine Advanced strikes the balance to sort a wide variety of fruit types with exceptional accuracy. It achieves this whilst improving gentle handling, introducing hygienic design principles and maintaining excellent value.”

Now every single component of the TOMRA 5S Advanced that comes into contact with the fruit is made of stainless steel or specialized food grade injection-molded polymers. These materials are specially designed for the harsh environments of packhouse's operations. They are resistant to juice and other corrosive elements, as well as the chemicals used in the cleaning process. Surfaces of the new design, which contact fruit, are engineered for quick release, enabling fast and toolless removal. It simplifies the process and improves machine up time.

Sebastian Stoof, VP and Head of Product at Compac, explained that the true measure of hygienic design is the ease of accessibility for cleaning and sanitization: “Any machine can be deemed to be hygienic, but if it takes a full engineering team to disassemble and access the areas that need to be cleaned, then is it truly fit for purpose? That is why a key design principle of the new platform was to make it as quick and easy to clean and maintain the sorter as possible.”

A sorting platform digitally enabled to connect to Cloud data platforms such as TOMRA Insight, providing access to valuable operational data and statistics. It also allows the flow of information up and down the supply chain and helps the packhouse to open a path to deliver traceability from the bin to pack.

“There is a significant demand for such a machine: we have already quoted for more than 40 projects adding up to over 200 lanes across our global customer base. At Compac we are proud of our reputation for performance, gentle handling reliability and longevity, and we are confident that the TOMRA 5S Advanced will continue to build on this legacy,” concluded Ken Moynihan.

Compac is a member of the TOMRA Group, provides integrated post-harvest solutions and services to the global fresh produce industry using the world’s most advanced grading technology and operates centers of excellence, regional offices and manufacturing locations within the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and Australasia.

More information can be found on Compac’s website.

TOMRA has more than 100,000 installations in over 80 markets worldwide. The Group provides technology-led solutions that enable the circular economy with the advanced collection and sorting systems that optimize resource recovery and minimize waste in the food, recycling and mining industries.

Click here for further information about TOMRA.