Landec and Chiquita Expand Packaging Agreement
|
MENLO PARK, CA, Sept 25, 2007 -- Polymer technology company Landec Corporation and Chiquita Brands International, Inc. announced Tuesday that Landec's food subsidiary, Apio, Inc., has expanded its joint technology license and supply agreement with Chiquita for packaging bananas, and now for avocados.
The current agreement, initially entered into in September 2004, provides Chiquita use of Landec's patented BreatheWay packaging technology for Chiquita bananas.
Under this agreement, in exchange for expanding the exclusive license fields for bananas and adding an exclusive license for avocados, the minimum gross profit amounts to Landec from the purchase of BreatheWay packaging by Chiquita will increase a total of $2.1 million over Landec's next two fiscal years to $2.9 million in fiscal year 2008 and to $2.2 million in fiscal year 2009, a statement form Landec said.
Both Landec and Chiquita currently expect that the purchases of BreatheWay packaging by Chiquita in Landec's fiscal year 2009 will exceed the minimum purchase level of $2.2 million and will continue to increase appreciably in subsequent years.
Chiquita said BreatheWay technology significantly delivers longer shelf life to expand distribution and meet consumers' needs for perfectly ripe Chiquita bananas all the time, with popular products such as single Chiquita to Go(TM) bananas.
The Landec technology will allow Chiquita to offer high-quality, ripe-and-ready avocados with extended shelf life, which fits the strategy to deliver innovative, higher-margin products that meet the needs of customers and consumers for fresh, healthy, convenient foods, the fresh fruit company said.
|
