A Well-Organized Company
Interview with Vincent Sonneville, Area Sales Manager of Optimum Sorting NV
At Optimum Sorting, the wheat is separated from the chaff: the Belgian sorting machine manufacturer aims with its systems to consistently ensure that flawless products and potentially dangerous rejects go their separate ways. Area Sales Manager Vincent Sonneville disclosed to Wirtschaftsforum which technological innovations are supposed to ensure this – and why close cooperation with his customers is so important for this.
Wirtschaftsforum: Mr. Sonneville, for about eight years now, Optimum Sorting has been supporting its customers in sorting - how exactly did that come about?
Vincent Sonneville: Our two founders, Paul Berghmans and Steve Raskin, come from the industry and had previously worked at major sorting machine manufacturers. However, they increasingly found themselves alienated from the existing conditions: They wanted to be closer to customers, make decisions faster, and thus be more innovative. However, this was only possible in a smaller company with efficient structures and the necessary expertise. Eventually, they founded Optimum NV in 2017 - and also acquired Concept Engineers, a Dutch company that had been active in the market for over 20 years at that point.
Wirtschaftsforum: What application areas do you serve today with your sorting machines?
Vincent Sonneville: Essentially, we primarily cater to the food industry: various types of vegetables, nuts, candies, fruits, seafood, and especially potatoes are sorted on our systems – as finished products, but also as French fries or chips. Mealworms, which are increasingly processed as a meatless alternative to burger patties, are now also part of our sorting goods. Furthermore, we cater to companies in the non-food sector, such as in the context of fine mountain products.
Wirtschaftsforum: How do sorting processes work in detail on your equipment?
Vincent Sonneville: Our machines are equipped with various technologies that allow for targeted separation of flawless products from defective ones — for instance, cameras that would immediately notice a brown foreign element while sorting green peas, which would then be excluded via a valve. However, cameras alone are not sufficient — a green plastic part in a pile of peas would likely be even more dangerous, but due to the same color, it wouldn't be detected. That's why our systems also have lasers that would immediately notice the different shape structure.
As the only sorting machine manufacturer in the world, our machines are also equipped with metal detectors: In many production lines, the final inspection for potentially dangerous foreign metal bodies still takes place at the very end, when the product has already been packaged and thus has reached a considerable increase in value. However, with our systems, such an error can be eliminated much earlier in the production process, which is significantly more economical.
Wirtschaftsforum: Optimum Sorting basically offers three classes of machines: Ventus, Novus, and Magnus. Does one size fit all?
Vincent Sonneville: Not quite – because the requirements of our customers do differ in important details, even within the individual segments. Therefore, we like to conduct extensive tests at our locations in Belgium and the Netherlands to ensure that our equipment fits perfectly into the respective production flow. We now have about 1,000 machines in the field, although we generate only about a third of our revenue in Europe – the majority of our products are exported to North America and Asia. However, our activity does not end with the delivery, as we are available around the clock to provide technical support, and of course, we also take care of all regular maintenance work – 90% of which can now be performed remotely.
Wirtschaftsforum: What role do data play in the sorting process?
Vincent Sonneville: Our cameras, lasers, and infrared systems always have everything in view, so they know exactly, for example, what the rejection rates are. These numbers are also reported to the operators of the facilities, where they form the basis of important quality assurance measures – because many food processing companies have agreed on thresholds for certain quality indicators with their purchasers, which can already be sensibly recorded and proven with our machines. In their calibration, artificial intelligence now also plays an important role – our systems are learning to distinguish flawless sorting material from rejected material.
Wirtschaftsforum: Your founders started as a smaller, but powerful company in the market – are there strict limits to your growth?
Vincent Sonneville: We started back then with maybe two dozen employees and an annual turnover of 5 million EUR – today, over 100 people work for Optimum Sorting, and we achieve an annual turnover of around 40 million EUR. We are therefore looking back at quite impressive growth over the past few years – and what's more important: We consistently continue to develop our products. Therefore, we will be able to present brand new innovations in the coming months.