Combining high processing capacity, AI-powered inspection, and three-way sorting, the TOMRA 4A identifies and removes spoiled potatoes and foreign materials before storage, helping to protect crop quality and maximize the value from every harvest
TOMRA Food today announces the launch of TOMRA 4A, a new AI-powered optical sorting machine, designed to help potato growers and producers handle large volumes of potatoes while getting more usable value from every tonne harvested.
Its launch comes as growers across the globe contend with shorter, weather-dependent harvest windows, labour shortages in seasonal work, and rising growing and storage costs. The TOMRA 4A helps growers respond to these pressures by increasing speed, capacity, and accuracy of sorting, processing up to 100 tonnes of potatoes per hour, removing foreign material such as stones and mud clods with 92% accuracy, and handling incoming defect loads of up to 20%.
Its three-way sorting separates good potatoes, out-of-spec potatoes (e.g. rotten, green, and mishappen potatoes) and foreign material into individual streams. This enables users to protect good quality potatoes in one stream, while retaining potatoes that may still have a secondary use to reduce wastage and, in turn, maximise returns on the entire crop.
Paul Menz, Product Manager, TOMRA Food said: “TOMRA is a market leader in optical sorting, having first developed optical sorters at the potato harvest stage over 14 years ago. Since then, we have continuously developed our solutions for the entire potato value chain. The TOMRA 4A marks the beginning of our next generation platform.”
“The TOMRA 4A is designed to support farmers with the capabilities they need to get the most from their harvest. The TOMRA 4A delivers flexibility, unbeatable sorting capacity and sorting accuracy across multiple criteria such as rotten, shape and colour defects.
Crucially, this means good crop will not be compromised by rotten potatoes in storage, while the second stream of out-of-spec potatoes gives growers more options to get value from the crop they’ve already worked and paid to produce.”
The TOMRA 4A combines dual sided Pulsed LED+ inspection, precise ejection technology and TOMRA’s proprietary AI platform, LUCAi, to identify and remove defective potatoes at high speed. Pre-trained sorting models are ready for operators to use from day one, while machine learning gives users the flexibility to adapt to local conditions and teach the system to classify defects unique to their crop. The intuitive XCD user interface helps operators set up and adjust sorting programmes in minutes, reducing time spent on daily tasks such as identifying new defects, and enabling the entire line to be managed by a single operator.
Chris Enright, SVP for Global Solutions, TOMRA Food, said: “The TOMRA 4A brings proven technology we’ve developed across our food sorting business into the potato industry, giving growers access to greater capacity, accuracy, and flexibility without having to choose one at the expense of another.”
“Potatoes are a priority area for TOMRA Food, and the TOMRA 4A is an important step in strengthening our position in this market. By bringing technology and expertise from across our business into potatoes, our ambition is to establish TOMRA as a leader in potato sorting and a long-term technology partner for growers and producers, from the field through to production.”
The TOMRA 4A launches on the 5th of November for unwashed potatoes and is being developed as a multi-application platform. Onion sorting will be the next application available on all TOMRA 4A machines, launching in time for the next harvest season. The Machine will debut for the first time at Interpom 2026, taking place from the 29th of November to the 1st of December, at Kortrijk Xpo, Belgium.
You can find out more about the TOMRA 4A here: https://www.tomra.com/food/machines/tomra-4a
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