California farmers to destroy 420,000 peach trees after Del Monte collapses

So dug into this a bit. It's just a sad situation. The peaches are made for high heat canning not for grocery sales. We would hate to eat them and they have no real market value outside of their purpose. They go bad in days. Transport logistics are difficult. Only so much food banks cam handle. 50,000 tons is ~= 110 million pounds. Oof. I feel like there's something wrong with the food growing and distribution strategy of modern day.

It’s sad reading this, because here in UK I’ve noticed that the tinned fruit section in the aisles has a smaller footprint now. I enjoy eating tinned fruit and at times it’s been a cheaper and tasty alternative to fresh fruit. Hit me with those pineapple slices!!!

How the f*** did Del Monte go out of business? [On March 8, 2011, the company announced it had been acquired by an investor group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del_Monte_Foods) Oh, of course. Private f****** equity.

I have a feeling we may regret not maintaining the canned food infrastructure. we are lucky to be able to do fresh fruit and veggies now more often, but not having a stockpile and long term canned food solution may end up hurting us in the future should we need canned supplies.

“Ah, Del Monte. Enjoy them, old man. They will be your last."

Peaches come from a can

It makes for a good headline, but reality is a bit more nuanced. For one, peaches need **a lot** of water ([source](https://fieldreport.caes.uga.edu/publications/C879/cultural-management-of-the-bearing-peach-orchard/)). Especially in a dry climate such as California, the more plantations of stuff needing a lot of water get torn up and replaced with crops that need less water, the better. The other thing is, peach trees are short lived - only up to 20 years, and that's already stretching it, especially for commercial production. Yes, this still is a massive impact on farmers, I will not deny this - but it is nowhere near as bad as, say, wineyards where the bushes can get > 100 years old.

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

I've been exclusively eating Del Monte brand peaches and mandarin oranges in juice because the other brands don't taste right. This sucks.

Del Monte Foods Corporation II Inc., a 139-year-old producer of canned fruits and vegetables, [filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/del-monte-foods-announces-strategic-action-to-strengthen-financial-position-and-pursue-a-value-maximizing-sale-302496385.html) on July 1, 2025. The filing follows the company's 2014 acquisition and comes amid reporting on consumer shifts away from shelf-stable processed foods. With more than [$1 billion in liabilities](https://tanktransport.com/2025/08/del-monte-foods-chapter-11/) and between 10,000 and 25,000 creditors, Del Monte is pursuing a court-supervised 363 sale backed by $912.5 million in [debtor-in-possession financing](https://elevenflo.com/documents/1933337/), with its prepetition lenders positioned as the stalking horse bidder through a credit bid. **The 2014 Acquisition.** On [February 18, 2014, Del Monte Pacific Limited](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140218006965/en/Del-Monte-Pacific-Limited-Completes-Purchase-Del)—a food and beverage conglomerate dual-listed on the Singapore Exchange and Philippine Stock Exchange—closed its acquisition of Del Monte Foods' Consumer Products business for $1.675 billion. The deal included the Del Monte, Contadina, College Inn, and S&W brands, along with manufacturing facilities and distribution infrastructure. At the time of acquisition, the portfolio held the [number one position in branded canned fruits and vegetables](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140218006965/en/Del-Monte-Pacific-Limited-Completes-Purchase-Del) and the number two position in canned tomatoes and broths. The acquisition was funded through approximately $745 million in equity plus $930 million in long-term financing arranged by Citibank and Morgan Stanley. The [transaction left Del Monte with $1.245 billion in secured debt](https://www.ainvest.com/news/del-monte-bankruptcy-watershed-moment-canned-food-industry-2507/), and industry reporting estimates annual interest payments increased from $66 million in fiscal year 2020 to $125 million by fiscal year 2025.

I think the shock value is being missed here. Imagine being a farm owner, then suddenly your 20 year contract, your security financially, is worthless, and you have no recourse either. You can't pay your workers, and have to foot the cost of destroying a crop you consistently maintained for decades. It's like the floor falling out from under you.

Call MTG. She can use some peach tree dishes and relocate them to Georgia.

Or you could just give all people that want peaches, free peaches!

What other crop are they going to grow?

Coincidentally, I just started reading epitaph for a peach, about a small peach farmer trying to adapt an old variety of peach, suncrest, to new markets. Theres a huge amount of pressure to only grow varieties that store the longest, and have the best color, even at the cost of taste. Pretty good read.

I buy these more than regular peaches. Shame.

Private equity fired the man in a factory downtown to save a buck. The Presidents of the United States of America have left the chat.

It amazes me how much fruit California produces, yet we pay the same, sometimes more for fruit. Even when get it at the farm/orchard itself. As for nuts, this one especially pisses me off. CA produces 75%+ of the WORLDS almonds and walnuts, and of pistachios in USA, yet we pay MORE for them than OHIO!!! Why? It costs less to transport them in the same state, but we pay MORE???!!! I honestly stopped buying as many nuts when I learned it. I’m ok with it. Anyway, that’s my rant regarding CA produce.

I live in the area on a 20 acre plot that was until recently planted with 20yo walnut trees that provided walnuts to the global market. The walnut market went away, so the trees were replaced. Now I'm surrounded by forage that's grown for local dairies. The land owner had choices. Keep the walnuts and rely on the US market (it's just not there), sell the land to developers (with the jobs disappearing, no one will be buying new houses around here for a bit), tear up 20 years of effort keeping the orchard productive and lease the land to someone else for production of an economically viable crop. He chose the latter. There are A LOT of fallow farms in the area that are being purchased by private equity for a small fraction of their worth just two years ago, and thankfully ours is still in a local family's hands.... for now

My mom used to work at the Del Monte 90s and 2000s in Modesto. We would go up each summer, and she would put un-godly hours of overtime and make a lot of money before going back to Mexico. My dad wasted all her hard work with booze, women and other bad investments. Sad to see them go out of business, she would spoil me with what she could.

Private equity is capitalism that has turned cancerous Investors demand short term profits that gut a company’s ability to function. Quality drops. Compensation and benefits for employees drop Eventually, the company is pieced out for its parts which are less than the sum of its part

One of the saddest things I ever watched happen over my lifetime was watching my grandparents house in Yuba City, CA go from being surrounded by seemingly endless peach orchards to watching every last tree get ripped out of the ground to make way for slapped together subdivisions built during the early 2000s housing bubble.

Is there a way to make that into fertilizer?

Millions of peaches Peaches for me Millions of peaches Peaches for free

The 2030s appear to be coming at us like the 1930s came at my grandparents. The new and improved Great Depression.

Probably a good thing. Peaches need a lot of water that could be used elsewhere. Lawns, pools, washing Teslas, giant data centers, Nestle, shit like that.

Seems like a big hole being punched in our fruit basket - so to speak. I eat canned peaches because they are really badass cans full of delicious peaches. If they are not put there by a man they will not come in a can and since there's no factory downtown I think we should all be a little concerned

What else is in the teaches of peaches? Huh? What?

This is gonna hit the Presidents of the United States of America really hard.