Dive Brief:

• Del Monte Pacific is teaming with Spain's Nice Fruit to create a new frozen fruit processing business based in the Philippines to sell Nice frozen fruit products across the globe.
• The deal gives Del Monte a stake in the fresh frozen market, a fast-growing section of the produce industry.
• Nice will maintain a majority stake in the venture, which will build a cold storage plant capable of handling Nice's patented NFD (Nice Frozen Dry) technology, which is said to preserve the taste, feel, and scents of fresh fruit for up to three years after freezing.

Dive Insight:

It was just slightly more than a year ago that Del Monte Pacific was formed to acquire the canned food business of Del Monte Foods Consumer Products. That deal, made at bargain basement prices, suggested that Del Monte's canned foods business might not be in the best of shape. And a few months after the deal was announced, the world learned that the new owners were now a half-billion dollars in debt.

All that would seem to point to a need for new partners and/or new products with considerable growth potential. Spain's Nice would seem to fit that bill quite nicely.