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A well-known grocery store brand, which has long sold canned fruits and vegetables, has filed for bankruptcy. Del Monte Foods, a 138-year old company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Thursday. The company is headquartered in Walnut Creek, California, and operates six production facilities across the U.S., and two in Mexico. The company is now looking for a buyer with plans to sell off all of its assets. “This is a strategic step forward for Del Monte Foods,” said Greg Longstreet, president and CEO of Del Monte Foods, in a press release. “After a thorough evaluation of all available options, we determined a court-supervised sale process is the most effective way to accelerate our turnaround and create a stronger and enduring Del Monte Foods. With an improved capital structure, enhanced financial position and new ownership, we will be better positioned for long-term success.” From canned fruit king to bankruptcy In addition to its flagship Del Monte brand, which includes canned fruits, vegetables, fruit cups, juices, and more, the company is also known for selling College Inn and Contadina products. The company began in 1886 before building a cannery in 1907 in San Francisco in 1907. Just two years later, in 1909, it had become the largest canned fruit and vegetable company in the world, according to the company’s website. Del Monte says it has secured $912.5 million in new funding, which includes $165 million from some of its current lenders. The funds will allow the company to continue operations leading up to its sale. The company listed liabilities estimated between $1 billion and $10 billion, per court documents. Mr. Longstreet continued, “While we have faced challenges intensified by a dynamic macroeconomic environment, Del Monte Foods has nourished families for nearly 140 years, and we remain committed to our mission of expanding access to nutritious, great-tasting food for all. I am deeply grateful to our employees, growers, customers and vendors, as well as our lenders for their support in helping us achieve our long-term goals.” Overseas operations remain unaffected Del Monte also operates outside of the U.S. and Mexico, with other main locations in the Philippines, Singapore, and India. The company says it doesn’t expect interruptions to non-U.S. units, including its operations in Mexico. When it comes to recognizable grocery store products, Del Monte has been one of the biggest staples on the shelves for over a decade. Still, the company is not the only major brand to face financial challenges as of late. A number of fast casual chains, pharmacies, and other stores, such as Big Lots and Joann Fabrics, have all filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in recent months, signaling that in a tough market even iconic brands are struggling to hold on. Why is Del Monte filing for bankruptcy now? While Del Monte says increased production costs are to blame for the company’s struggles, some experts say that canned foods, which rely heavily on preservatives, are no longer America’s go-to at the grocery store. Consumer preferences have shifted away from preservative-laden canned food in favor of healthier alternatives,” Sarah Foss, global head of legal and restructuring at Debtwire, said, per CNN. While Americans did lean on canned food immediately after Trump announced new tariffs, with more information around the risks of high levels of bisphenol A (BPAs) in canned products, there are plenty of health-focused reasons to avoid them altogether.
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E-Commerce
Shares of U.K.’s Bytes Technology plunged over 27% on Wednesday after the IT firm said its operating profit for the first half of fiscal 2026 would be marginally lower due to delayed customer decisions and longer-than-expected readjustments from internal restructuring. Trading in the first few months of the year was hurt by macroeconomic pressures, leading to deferred customer decisions, particularly among corporates, the firm said in an update to the exchanges ahead of its annual general meeting. The stock fell as much as 27.43% to 369 pence, the lowest since April 2023, before paring some losses to trade down 23% at 391.4 pence by 08:00 GMT. Bytes, which provides software, cloud, and AI services, is moving from a generalist sales model to specialised, customer segment-focused teams a shift that has taken longer than expected, it said. Also weighing on its performance in the first half are changes to Microsoft’s enterprise agreement program, which the company had disclosed earlier, where certain transactional incentives have been reduced. The impact of the changes are weighted more to the first half due to high levels of renewals in March and April, Bytes said. The firm posted an operating profit of 35.6 million pounds ($48.8 million) for the first half of fiscal 2025. On Wednesday, it said it expects gross profit for the first half of fiscal 2026 to be flat. In May, it had said it was “well positioned” to deliver another year of double-digit gross profit growth and high single-digit operating profit growth in financial year 2025-26. “Investors will be slightly taken aback by the more cautious AGM statement, which now flags flat year over year trends versus May guidance for double-digit gross profit growth,” Jefferies analysts said in a note. ($1 = 0.7298 pounds) Judes Joseph, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Flying comes with a lot of carbon emissions, but not all plane seats are environmentally equal. Seats that take up more space, like business or first class, come with a higher personal carbon footprint than the tightly packed seats in economy. Private jets, which have fewer than 20 seats total, are even more polluting per person. Now a coalition of eight countries has pledged to tax so-called premium fliers as a way to raise funds for climate action. The countries in the coalition are France, Kenya, Barbados, Spain, Somalia, Benin, Sierra Leone, and Antigua and Barbudaall members of the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force, a group launched at the COP28 climate conference in 2023. Municipalities have increasingly considered taxes on polluting activities, like private jet use or carbon emissions, as a way to make it less profitable to pollute, and to finance sustainable development initiatives. This initiative will also be supported by the European Commission. The tax on premium fliers will affect first- and business-class tickets as well as passengers on private jets, though its not yet clear how high the tax will be (a recent unrelated study on private jet use found that taxing private jet fuels at $1.95 per gallon could generate $3 billion annually for decarbonization efforts). A study for the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force found that broad aviation taxes, like on commercial jet fuels and for frequent fliers as well as private jets, combined could generate 187 billion euros (upwards of $220 billion) per year. Countries have tried to take other steps to curb aviation emissions, like by banning short flights. In 2021, France announced it would ban any flight that could be replaced by a 180-minute train ride. France also recently released plans to drastically cut marine shipping emissions. Only a small percentage of the world is responsible for aviation emissions. Overall, aviation accounts for 2.5% of the worlds greenhouse gas emissions (its warming effect is stronger, however; aviation has contributed around 4% to global temperature rise since preindustrial times). But that comes from a limited group: Only around 10% of the worlds population flies most years. Just 1% of the worlds population is responsible for more than half of all aviation emissions, a group that has been dubbed super emitters. Flying is the most elite and polluting form of travel, so this is an important step towards ensuring that the binge users of this undertaxed sector are made to pay their fair share, Rebecca Newsom of Greenpeace International said in a statement about the coalitions pledge. With the cost of climate impacts surging in countries least responsible for the crisis, bold, cooperative action that makes polluters pay is not just fairits essential. But Newsom noted that the task force, and other rich countries, should go even further. The obvious next step is to hold oil and gas corporations to account, she said, by committing to higher taxes on fossil fuel profits and extraction by COP30.
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E-Commerce
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