It’s party time for the folks down under and their associates around the world who make up the Sydney, Australia-headquartered tna team. The supplier of integrated food processing and packaging equipment has passed another milestone as it marks 35 successful years in business.
Founded in February of 1982 by Alf and Nadia Taylor, the company helped transform the snack food industry by launching the world’s first high-speed vertical form-fill-seal (VFFS) system – the tna robag® – in 1985. Since then it has evolved into a global supplier of food processing and packaging solutions that go well beyond the snack sector.
Having completed over 14,000 installations in more than 120 countries, tna’s range of machinery runs the gamut from fryers, freezers, conveyors, seasoning and coating systems to complete packaging lines with integrated metal detectors, scales, date coders, inserters, labelers and film splicing technology.
Reminiscing about on the company’s history, CEO Alf Taylor commented: “I can’t believe it’s been 35 years since we started this business. Back then, nobody in the industry could imagine that a VFFS system would ever achieve anything more than 60 bags a minute. They said ‘You’re crazy, that’s impossible.’
“But we knew our innovation would work. It took a lot of knocking on doors, multiple rejections, quite a sum of money and a ridiculous amount of hours working out of a small shed at the back of Smiths chips factory – but in the end we did it. We delivered a system that not only doubled packaging speeds, but completely revolutionized the market.”
Today the global organization employs over 500 people in 30 locations around the world. The past five years have been particularly busy, as the company has made a number of significant strategic acquisitions, including the integration of food processing specialists FOODesign and Florigo. Renowned for innovative frying equipment, including high-performance batch fryers and full french fry production lines, these two companies enabled tna to complete the leap from packaging pioneer to single-source supplier of start-to-finish solutions.
“We founded tna with the vision to deliver the ultimate in food packaging and processing, so expanding our products and capabilities to the entire production line was always part of our strategy,” said Director Nadia Taylor. “We’re now the only supplier in the world that is able to deliver complete solutions for the entire potato snack and french fry industries – from the raw potato to the bag.”
