Del Monte PH sells US Sager Creek vegetable business

Del Monte logo

Campos-led food and beverage conglomerate Del Monte Pacific Ltd. (DMPL) has sold its US vegetable business under Arkansas-based Sager Creek Vegetable Co. for $55 million, citing the need to focus on its core businesses.

DMPL’s US subsidiary Del Monte Foods Inc (DMFI) entered into an agreement to sell Sager Creek to McCall Farms Inc, a family-owned business that manufactures brands such as Bruce’s Yams, Margaret Holmes and Glory Foods.

“This divesture allows us to focus our energy and resources on strengthening our core business, driving innovation, and exploring new products that meet the evolving needs of today’s consumer,” DMFI chief operating officer David Meyers said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday.

Sager Creek produces specialty vegetables for the foodservice and retail markets and manufactures several brands, including Veg-all, Freshlike, Popeye, Princella, Trappey’s and Allens.

“Leading brands like Allens fit perfectly with our heritage of making authentic, southern-style vegetables that can be served as a meal, side-dish or used as a key cooking ingredient,” Woody Swink, co-president at McCall Farms, said in a separate press statement issued out of the company’s headquarters in South Carolina.

As a result of this sale, one production facility in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, will immediately cease operations.

Based on the disclosure, DMFI will continue to be the point of service for all retail and foodservice customers of Sager Creek through early 2018. It committed to work closely with McCall Farms to support a “seamless transition” to McCall’s organization.

No director or controlling shareholder has any interest in the transaction or in any service contracts
related to it, the disclosure added.

DMFI is one of the country’s largest producers, distributors and marketers of premium quality, branded food products for the U.S. retail market. The company also produces and distributes private label food products. Its brands include Del Monte, Contadina, College Inn and S&W.