TOMRA Food is forming cross-industry working groups to accelerate development of digital standards for the food industry, with the first meetings to be held in Q4, 2018.

“Thousands of TOMRA Food sorters around the world are generating valuable data that has the power to optimize every part of the food supply chain,” says Mike Riley, Head of TOMRA Food.  “This is in addition to data from millions of other devices and applications also in use, from harvest to distribution to consumer purchase.

“We want to work across the industry to integrate this data through digital standards that lead to continuous improvements, from precision farming to trading to retail marketing of fresh and processed food products.

“It’s vital we take the lessons, experience and technology from other industries that can be applied to the food supply chain. This industry collaboration will drive efficiency, productivity, waste reduction and transparency for everyone from farmer-growers to processors to end consumers,” he said.

As a starting point, working groups will be launched to address the following topics:

1. Precision agriculture – using sorting data to inform future farming practices
2. Packhouse operations – optimizing yield, throughput, and up-time through machine data
3. Distribution – reducing waste through alignment of packaging and transport
4. Retail – integrating production data with last mile fulfillment practices

Following Fruit Logistica, TOMRA will announce more details regarding the working groups, and welcome expressions of interest from across the industry.