Why Tomra’s TOMRA 5C quietly raises the bar in fruit and nut sorting

Reviewed: ad hoc news B2B & Pro desk. Edited and checked on 2026-06-20, 11:03. Details in the imprint.

With the TOMRA 5C, Tomra sends a sorting machine into food factories that is designed to stare at raisins, almonds, and seeds all day and still not miss a defect. In the noisy production hall, it is the quiet, relentless guardian of product quality.

What the TOMRA 5C actually does

At its core, the TOMRA 5C is an optical sorter for dried fruits, nuts, seeds, and similar foods, built to detect defects and foreign material at very high speed. It uses high-resolution cameras and lasers to scan every single piece on the belt.

Processors can run raisins, cashews, sunflower seeds, and more through the same compact platform and train the system to reject discoloration, mold, shells, or plastics. The result, when properly tuned, is cleaner product and fewer customer complaints.

Deep learning inside the machine

Tomra pairs the TOMRA 5C hardware with its TOMRA Insight and deep-learning software modules, allowing the sorter to recognize increasingly subtle defects over time. Patterns learned from one line can be transferred and refined for another product.

On the operator side, this feels less like tweaking dozens of obscure parameters and more like choosing clear recipes for “premium”, “standard”, or “maximum yield”. The user interface is surprisingly tidy for such an industrial workhorse.

Speed, footprint, and day-to-day handling

Depending on configuration and product, the TOMRA 5C can handle several tons per hour, which makes it suitable for medium and large processors that run multiple shifts. Despite that throughput, the machine’s footprint stays relatively compact for crowded plants.

Maintenance is dominated by cleaning: removing dust, sticky fruit residues, and shell pieces from chutes and inspection areas. Doors and panels are laid out for quick access, but managers still need to plan regular pauses if they want consistent detection performance.

Where the limits become visible

The TOMRA 5C shines with fairly uniform products, like calibrated nuts or raisins. Mixed, highly irregular raw material, or products with heavy surface seasoning, can demand more experimentation and advanced setup work to reach the promised defect removal rates.

There is also the price point: optical sorters are capital equipment, not impulse buys. For small family processors with modest volumes, leasing or toll-processing with a partner may be more realistic than installing a full TOMRA 5C line.

How it fits into Tomra’s bigger story

For Tomra Systems ASA, the TOMRA 5C sits in the Food segment alongside platforms such as TOMRA 3C and TOMRA 5B and aims to capture growing demand for safer, more consistent food supply chains. The machine targets especially the global snack and dried-fruit industry.

Shares of Tomra Systems ASA (NO0005668905) trade on the Oslo Stock Exchange, where the company is listed in Norwegian kroner.

This article was AI-assisted and editorially reviewed. Product information without guarantee; prices and availability may change at short notice. No investment advice, no buy or sell recommendation. Stock-market transactions involve risks up to total loss.