Tomra job cuts: Staff to learn fate this week, layoffs after Christmas

One of Compac's fruit sorting machines in action. Compac owner Tomra is laying off staff amid a global restructure.

New Zealand employees at food processor Tomra will learn their fate later this week as the multinational giant works through an organisational restructure likely to cost dozens of jobs.

The Herald last week revealed the Norwegian company is taking the axe to its New Zealand-based operations as part of a global cost-cutting exercise that could result in around 100 staff layoffs here.

In a follow-up statement to the Herald, Paul Slupecki, senior vice-president and head of Tomra Fresh Food based in Melbourne, said the company was still working through consultation with most of its New Zealand-based teams.

“We anticipate to be able to have consultation outcomes for our organsiation changes by the end of next week [December 14],” he said last Thursday, adding that redundancies won’t take place until the new year.

“Although we may confirm the outcomes and potential impacts of redundancies before Christmas, we do not intend to have their redundancies to take effect until the new year.

“To help our employees through this difficult period, we are gifting leave to our people over the Christmas and New Year period and this will not be deducted from their annual leave entitlements.”

The Herald understands dozens of redundancies are expected at manufacturing plants and sales and service sites in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga and Hastings.

One of those sites is a brand new $14 million building near Hamilton Airport, built by BBC Technologies, a fruit technology manufacturer that Tomra bought for $66.9m in 2018.

Tomra, publicly listed on the Oslo stock exchange, announced its cost reduction plan when releasing its third-quarter financial results in late October.

The company plans to simplify its food business and reduce costs by €30m ($53m) and is understood to be cutting around 300 roles globally.

New Zealand appears heavily affected, with Tomra looking to create a regional structure consisting of the Americas and Asia Pacific and within those regions, merge its fresh and processed sales and service organisations into one team.

“We want to ensure we have the right people in the right place, in the right time zone,” Tomra Food executive vice-president Harald Henriksen said in October.

Aside from BBC Technologies, Tomra also owns fruit sorting company Compac Holdings, which supplies crucial equipment to the kiwifruit industry.

Founded by Hamish Kennedy in 1984, Compac designs and builds machines to weigh and sort fruit and vegetables, using software, computers, electronics and video cameras to help match fruit ripeness with market delivery.

The company claims its machines are the fastest in the world, with the ability to sort more than 100 pieces a second.

Tomra’s two New Zealand subsidies claimed wage subsidies for 413 staff during the initial level 4 Covid lockdown in April 2020.