00:00After nearly 40 years apart, the Del Monte brand is back under one roof.
00:04Today marks the company's first day trading under new ticker DMC.
00:08Joining us now is Del Monte chairman and CEO, Mohamed Abou Ghazali.
00:12Mohamed, thank you so much for joining.
00:14And so you have the packaged and the fresh components of the business now coming back together.
00:19Why do this after 37 years?
00:21Well, it took some time for us to bring it back together.
00:24I mean, it was like a dream, a mission, let's put it that way.
00:27And I would be thankful to God that we were able to reunite the brand again after all these times.
00:35You know, I mean, it was broken up, you know, in 1989 and in pieces.
00:41You know, we acquired the fresh Del Monte in 1996.
00:45And then we acquired Del Monte Food Europe, Africa, and Middle East in 2004.
00:50And now, just recently, we've been able to acquire the mother company, which is Del Monte Food.
00:56Now, it's been a huge journey you've been on, but so much in the food market.
01:01I mean, we can talk about the supply chains in a moment, but just the consumer demand part of it
01:05has changed so much.
01:06And I wonder, putting these together, if you're also writing this trend of people who want, you know, fresh food,
01:13less chemicals,
01:14and how important that is to the business to have that fresh food component within the same roof.
01:19I think we are a unique company in terms of having the fresh and the consumer goods and non-fresh.
01:27So, we can do a lot of cross-missionizing, marketing.
01:32And as historically well-known, Del Monte is a very trusted brand.
01:39I mean, we do have the highest quality in the market.
01:43How has consumer demand been?
01:47Are they willing to pay up for high quality right now?
01:49Or is there so much pressure that maybe they're more likely to reach for the canned tin of pineapples rather
01:55than the fresh pink one?
01:57Well, you have both, you know, you have both consumers.
02:00You have the one that can afford to buy a pink pineapple or pineapple, fresh pineapple in general.
02:06And you have people that will go for the canned goods.
02:09So, we do cater for both sectors of the economy.
02:15By the way, I know another big impediment or headwind that you've been dealing with.
02:19In your first quarter, you specifically pointed to the Middle East conflict and the Strait of Hormuz
02:23and some of the pressure that's put on the supply chain and what that's done to profits.
02:29Are you seeing anything that looks like a normalization as we start to see some ships flow through the Strait
02:35of Hormuz?
02:35Yeah, we were impacted mainly by the cost of the fuel, transportation, supply chain, you know, like materials, fertilizers and
02:46paper and things like that.
02:48But I believe that this is going to ease up as we go forward and as the oil prices have
02:55gone down.
02:56So, we believe this will be hopefully in the next few months.
03:00Well, you also have deep expertise in the Middle East as well, given your background.
03:05And the president has talked about that.
03:06He wants Iran to use the unfrozen assets to buy American agriculture.
03:12I wonder what you think of that deal and whether you think something like that might be likely, considering these
03:16are two worlds you know very well.
03:17Well, I believe that Iran needs, you know, grain and needs food for sure, whether they buy it from the
03:24U.S. or somewhere else.
03:25Yes. And I think normalization of relations and buying from the U.S. will be good things for both countries.
03:32So, I hope that this will happen.
03:36I mean, your business is one that is very exposed to politics.
03:39The farming sector is one that the president cares a lot about, or presidents historically have.
03:44But affordability in the grocery store is one it cares a lot about.
03:47And in the Middle East, it feels like it is, you know, issue after issue after issue that you have
03:52to navigate.
03:52How have you been navigating that over the past couple of years?
03:55Has your approach to D.C. changed at all?
03:58Well, we've been navigating this for the last 30, 40 years.
04:02So, it's not something new to us.
04:05And we can, you know, we are agile and we can manage, you know, as these headwinds come in our
04:11way.
04:11We have challenges, so we need to just adapt to them and find a way.
04:16How do you manage costs of fertilizer, costs of energy?
04:20How have you been trying to hedge some of that?
04:24By streamlining the business in a better way, trying to tighten the belt, you know, and on other cost centers,
04:31you know, you can save on marketing a little bit.
04:34You can save on other things that will not impact the business in any significant way.
04:39So, we survive.
04:42And at the same time, you're doing some interesting work when it comes to pharmaceuticals.
04:47I think you have an application about treating pancreatic cancer cells on pineapple-derived extracts.
04:55Did I get that right?
04:56Where did you get that?
04:57Okay, no, perhaps not.
04:58You have no patent filings around that.
05:00You do have, though, your pink pineapple.
05:02We have pink pineapple.
05:03How much of that is just about it looks really good?
05:06And so, you get some fun advertising out of that.
05:09No, no.
05:10As a matter of fact, you just mentioned, we have been doing some research with a very prestigious university in
05:17Europe in the last few years.
05:19And we have found, discovered actual novel bioactive ingredients, which are unique and doesn't have, there is no database globally
05:32similar.
05:33Right.
05:34So, we are patenting.
05:36We have patenting.
05:36Okay, that's the patent that you're working on.
05:38But is this medical applications that could be used for this?
05:40Yes, it's mainly, it will be pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and functional foods, as well as nutraceuticals.
05:49So, again, you've been at the company.
05:52You were saying, you know, you're ringing the bell nearly 30 years after you first did.
05:56And so much has changed.
05:57And I just wonder how you reflect back on those 30 years.
06:01I mean, the commercial break we were talking about, you're now using, looking at using AI in some aspects of
06:05your business.
06:05I just wonder how different of a Del Monte this is than it was 30 years ago.
06:09Oh, much difference.
06:10When we acquired the company, it was almost a billion dollars.
06:14Now, we are almost, with the acquisition, will be around $5 billion.
06:19We have expanded so much in different parts of the world as well.
06:23So, it's a completely different world.
06:25And I've seen it, you know, when 1996, we were almost at the beginning, you know, of the tech boom
06:31and changes.
06:33So, I've seen it even before that with no internet.
06:37And so, it's been an exciting journey, let's say.
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