Oct. 30, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Del Monte Foods (NYSE: DLM) announced today plans to relocate its current headquarters within San Francisco to One Maritime Plaza at 300 Clay Street, continuing more than a 100 year old tradition of maintaining its headquarters in the city. In doing so, the Company, which currently has two offices in San Francisco, including its current headquarters at The Landmark building at One Market Street, will be uniting its San Francisco workforce into one location. Consolidating Del Monte’s San Francisco offices builds upon the Company’s recent actions to centralize the organization and will further support execution of the Company’s accelerated growth strategy.

“Bringing our San Francisco teams together under one roof is important for Del Monte and its continued growth, and a smart move for us to make financially given the opportunities provided by the current real estate market,” said Rick Wolford, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Del Monte Foods. “This important step completes our plan to consolidate our headquarters office and marketing functions, to provide a centralized San Francisco location and to enhance our ability to execute our brand-focused strategy. San Francisco is a top U.S. city which enables us to attract top talent and our new One Maritime offices will enhance team work, upgrade our executional efficiency and importantly, provide room to grow.

Mr. Wolford continued, “We’re also very pleased that our headquarters will remain in the city’s financial district where we’ll have continued convenient access to business resources, public transportation, recreation and other amenities. Del Monte has been in San Francisco for more than a hundred years and is looking forward to continuing to be an integral part of the San Francisco community for many years to come.”

One Maritime Plaza is a premier building which will provide Del Monte with numerous benefits including increased square footage, additional conference rooms to foster enhanced collaboration, an employee training center to enable career development, and a physical fitness center to support employees’ healthy lifestyles.

Del Monte’s targeted occupancy date of One Maritime Plaza is early 2011. Approximately 400 employees will occupy 152,917 square feet of space among seven floors.

During the summer of 2008, in furtherance of its accelerated growth strategy, Del Monte centralized its brand support functions, including pet marketing and pet and operations finance, in its San Francisco office, increasing headquarters staff by approximately 25%. Prior to that, the Company’s pet food and snack brand support functions operated out of its Pittsburgh, PA office.