Group says the move boosts its presence in key fruit-growing regions of North and South America and allows it to better support its global customers
Agrofresh has announced that it has completed the acquisition of Pace International, a global provider of sustainable post-harvest solutions, equipment and technical services.
Prior to the transaction Pace was a subsidiary of Valent BioSciences, part of Sumitomo Chemical – sister company of Fyffes owner Sumitomo Corporation.
Pace manufactures and supplies edible fruit coatings, fungicides, cleaners and sanitisers, sustainable storage treatments and application equipment for fresh produce.
According to Agrofresh, the acquisition will bolster its presence in key fruit-growing regions in North and South America, and further enable the company to support its global customers with quality and freshness solutions for high value and highly perishable crops.
“This acquisition enables us to take another important step towards our vision – to be regarded by customers as the post-harvest partner of choice,” said Agrofresh CEO Clint Lewis. ” 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,” he noted.
In addition to integrating the Pace business into the company, Agrofresh and Valent BioSciences said they were planning to develop a strategic collaboration to ”accelerate the development of innovation to address the most pressing challenges in the freshness protection space”.
Agrofresh said the collaboration aimed to capitalise 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,” said Salman Mir, president and CEO of Valent BioSciences.
“We are excited to collaborate with Agrofresh in developing and commercialising new products, technologies and services that will address key customer challenges.”
