AgroFresh Solutions, Inc. announces the acquisition of Pace International LLC, including its domestic and overseas operations. Prior to the transaction, Pace was a subsidiary of Valent BioSciences LLC, a Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. group company.
Clint Lewis, CEO at AgroFresh, and Salman Mir, President and CEO at Valent BioSciences.
Pace is a global provider of sustainable post-harvest solutions, equipment and technical services. The acquisition of Pace bolsters AgroFresh's presence in key fruit-growing regions in North and South America and further enables the company to support its global customers with quality and freshness solutions for high value and highly perishable crops.
Pace manufactures and supplies edible fruit coatings, fungicides, cleaners and sanitizers, sustainable storage treatments and application equipment for fresh produce. Integrating the Pace business expands AgroFresh's post-harvest solutions to a broader portfolio of technology, services and digital solutions in both the organic and conventional produce categories, furthering AgroFresh's ability to support customers in accomplishing their mission of protecting produce quality and freshness on its journey from harvest to home.
Clint Lewis, CEO at AgroFresh: "This acquisition enables us to take another important step towards our vision— to be regarded by customers as the post-harvest partner of choice. We are excited to bring the combined portfolios, technical expertise and services of both companies to customers. Bringing together our two companies allows us to better address the complete needs of customers across a broad array of crops, markets and at every step in the fresh supply chain, ultimately helping customers produce and deliver an abundant supply of quality fresh produce, sustainably."
In addition to integrating the Pace business into the company, AgroFresh and Valent BioSciences plan to develop a strategic collaboration to accelerate the development of innovation to address the most pressing challenges in the freshness protection space. This collaboration aims to capitalize on the expertise and technology pipeline of Valent BioSciences to develop new post-harvest products, services and digital solutions and to leverage AgroFresh's global scale and reach to bring them to market.
"Acquisition of the Pace business by AgroFresh will create a post-harvest solutions platform that benefits customers and the food protection industry as a whole through stronger global reach, enhanced services and additional innovation capabilities. We are excited to collaborate with AgroFresh in developing and commercializing new products, technologies and services that will address key customer challenges," says Salman Mir, President and CEO of Valent BioSciences.
With the addition of Pace, AgroFresh is better positioned to address customers' needs through a full portfolio of products and capabilities. This will be realized along with a continued commitment to advancing innovation in the post-harvest sector and supporting customers in their effort to grow and distribute an abundant supply of fresh produce around the world.
For more information:
AgroFresh
www.agrofresh.com
Pace International
www.paceint.com