Michel Picandet has been appointed executive vice president and head of post-harvest solutions specialist Tomra Food.
Based at the company’s headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, Picandet will be in charge of Tomra Food's three brands: Tomra Food, Compac and BBC Technologies.
Prior to stepping into the role on 1 January (2020), Picandet served as global and managing director of multinational food packaging and processing company Tetra Pak. His resume also includes appointments with Sidel – where he worked in America, Asia and Europe – and Rhone-Poulenc Animal Nutrition.
Tomra president and chief executive, Stefan Ranstrand, said he was delighted to welcome Picandet to the group’s management team.
“He is a highly strategic, global business executive with strong experience in the food and beverage industry, as well as capital equipment and related services,” Ranstrand explained.
“I am confident that under his leadership, the Tomra Food team will continue to build on our three pillars of technical leadership, food trust and digital transformation, in order to achieve a more circular economy and safeguard the future of food.”
Picandet said he welcomed the opportunity to lead a “forward-looking” company, which is “spearheading the resource revolution” as a leader in sustainability.
“This is a company that continually strives to find innovative ways to reduce the world’s waste and optimise the use of its resources, and I am looking forward to the challenge of helping customers reduce food waste and improve yields in their operations, and build a reputation for their sustainability credentials,” Picandet explained.
Picandet will travel to Berlin in early February for Fruit Logistica, where Tomra Food will showcase the upgraded Tomra 5Bsorting machine. Suitable for potatoes, fruit and fresh-cut produce, the Tomra 5Bis an infeed belt sorting machine designed to remove even the smallest foreign materials form fresh produce.
