food Marketing - Technology 2/2023

Processing
How the Best Steam Peelers can
Significantly Reduce Food Waste
on Vegetable Processing Lines
When peeling vegetables, many processing lines waste huge amounts of food – and potential revenue. With
modern peeling machines, however, this can be prevented, while also reducing energy costs and water
consumption. Eamonn Cullen, Marketing Manager Peeling at TOMRA Food, explains how.
Food waste is financial waste, yet when
processing lines peel vegetables, they
often let huge amounts of raw material
get thrown away. Food losses can
be as high as 30% during mechanical
peeling and 20% with low-tech steam
peelers – and much of this lost revenue
is preventable.
Rather than accepting this, vegetable
processors can do something about
it. Instead of sticking with outdated
peeling machines or buying lowcost
peelers with low efficiency,
processors can reduce waste
significantly by investing in more
effective technologies. There are four
compelling reasons to do this.
One reason is that many vegetable
processing lines around the world are
now 20 to 30 years old. They need
modernizing, and this is the perfect
opportunity to install machinery that’s
more reliable and more efficient,
including the best modern steam
peelers.
Another reason is that vegetable
processing has changed over the
years. More big businesses are now
participating in the industry, and
more are responding to the growing
demand for peeled vegetables as
an ingredient for prepared meals.
This has led to lines increasing both
the volume and the variety of the
vegetables they handle. Whereas
low-volume processing lines might
operate only for a few months each
year during the harvesting season of
one type of vegetable, medium- and
large-volume lines handle different
kinds of vegetables with harvesting
seasons at different times of the
year. Waste that’s tolerated for a few
months annually is intolerable when
seen every day of the year.
The third reason is that huge
advances have been made in peeling
technologies. It remains true that
mechanical peelers are wasteful and
lower-tech steam peelers are also
inefficient – but the more sophisticated
28 food Marketing & Technology • April 2023