Del Monte Foods Implements Trade Management Solution from CAS.

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 2002

Industry Leader Deploys Centralized Promotion Planning and Funds

Management Solution to Broker Sales Channel

CAS, a global provider of enterprise sales and marketing applications for the consumer products industry, today announced that the Del Monte Foods Company (NYSE: DLM) has implemented CP iSales(TM), the industry leading trade management solution for managing promotions, products, and customer, broker, and partner relationships.

Del Monte Foods, the largest U.S. producer and distributor of premium quality, branded processed fruit, vegetable and tomato products, is relying on CP iSales to plan and execute trade promotion strategies and manage trade promotion spending. To support its field sales activities, the company is using CP iSales for field sales forecasting, critical trade marketing efforts and to enhance the collaboration between the company and its broker sales organization. All of these applications are with an eye toward implementing a more effective promotion strategy and increasing the company's returns from trade spending.

In addition to providing support to internal personnel - including senior management, sales, marketing, finance, customer marketing, and auditing personnel - Del Monte's broker network is using the system to develop promotions on their own, with each broker accessing the system via a user-specific portal designed to enable tight security and management oversight, while ensuring ease of use for broker sales agents. Though the system has been in full production for only a short time, Del Monte is already benefiting from increased visibility into customer requirements during the planning cycle, giving managers the ability to adjust promotion details as needed to better serve customers.

"CP iSales offers us greater insight into the status of critical sales and trade marketing efforts," said Doug Groth, Del Monte's director of trade promotions. "With CP iSales, we have received more than just a favorable return on investment. We have improved our ability to effectively communicate our sales objectives while gaining greater visibility into the participation of brand strategies and tactical plans. Our category leadership remains key for us and we expect CP iSales to help our brokers develop more successful promotions and build even stronger customer relationships."

Del Monte anticipates big benefits from their CP iSales implementation, including greater control of the planning process, improved spending efficiencies, more consistent communication between the field and corporate management, more timely information on sales performance against objectives, increased oversight of trade budgets, and enhanced compliance with corporate strategy.

"Before engaging with CAS, we relied on several internal systems that didn't deliver a reliable view of field sales activities or measure the effectiveness of individual promotions," said Marty Provost, vice president of customer marketing for Del Monte. "CAS was able to tailor their solution to meet the unique requirements of our go-to-market strategy. Their understanding of the ins and outs of the consumer products industry was particularly valuable during the implementation process."

Leveraging experience gained delivering collaboration software for over 170 consumer products clients around the world, CAS provides trade management solutions that quickly improve sales force productivity and positively impact the bottom line. CAS solutions automate internal collaboration among the sales, trade marketing, brand management, and eBusiness teams of a consumer products manufacturer as well as external collaboration with brokers, distributors and customers. These collaborative efforts are enabled by CAS' 100% web-designed collaboration management engine and an XML-based exchange compliant architecture.

"Enabling collaboration across an extended enterprise requires a solution designed from the beginning to achieve this vision," said Jeff Cronon, chief operating officer of CAS. "And of course, the new business processes that are being enabled must prove to be more efficient and more effective than the manual processes they're replacing, or the technology won't matter very much. These are two important reasons why companies like Del Monte have chosen to implement CAS solutions - consumer products is our exclusive focus, and we're committed to offering our customers proven technologies that can accomplish their specific goals."

About CAS

CAS is a global provider of enterprise sales and marketing applications for the consumer products industry, including solutions for customer relationship management and trade management. CAS creates value for consumer product companies by increasing sales and marketing effectiveness, resulting in increased revenue, decreased costs, and enhanced employee and partner operations. CAS employs sophisticated Internet technologies, giving customers the ability to fully integrate sales and marketing activities and extend business processes to brokers, distributors, retailers, and other third parties for true business collaboration. CAS addresses a wide spectrum of sales and marketing challenges unique to the consumer products industry, including critical activities such as annual planning, allocation of funds, trade promotion management and execution, deduction processing, and post-event analysis. For more information, please visit www.cas.com or contact CAS at 770-399-8000.

About Del Monte

Del Monte Foods Company, with net sales of $1.3 billion in fiscal 2002, is the largest producer and distributor of premium quality, branded processed fruit, vegetable and tomato products in the United States. The Del Monte brand was introduced in 1892 and is one of the best known brands in the United States. Del Monte products are sold through national grocery chains, independent grocery stores, warehouse club stores, mass merchandisers, drug stores and convenience stores under the Del Monte, Contadina, S&W and Sunfresh brands. The Company also sells its products to the U.S. military, certain export markets, the foodservice industry and food processors. The Company operates twelve production facilities and seven distribution centers in the U.S., has operations in Venezuela and owns Del Monte brand marketing rights in South America. Information on the Company is available at its website, www.delmonte.com.