To fulfil increasing demand, Del Monte has opened a fresh cut food studio in their Rungis warehouse. Fresh cut fruit is increasing in popularity in France with sales quadrupling over the last six years. Del Monte is a leading specialist, notably in tropical fruits such as pineapples and bananas, but also melons, grapes, citrus fruit, apples and mangoes.
Del Monte was already active in the fresh cut market in the USA, Japan, Korea, the UK, the UAE and Saudi Arabia with almost 20 factories when they arrived in France in 2012 and set up a warehouse and ripening station in 2014. The warehouse and ripening station have a 27,000 ton annual banana capacity and can store 500 palettes of pineapples and other tropical fruits. Del Monte confirmed their ambitions for the fresh cut fruit market, which is expected to greatly increase, by setting up a 700m2 fresh cut studio in 2016. In the studio the fruits are washed, peeled, cut and packaged.
The company also has big ambitions in the out-of-home catering sector, which already represents 10-12% of their sales.