{"id":195451,"date":"2026-02-26T22:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T22:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/195451\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T22:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T22:01:16","slug":"del-monte-bankruptcy-leaves-california-peach-growers-in-550m-hole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/195451\/","title":{"rendered":"Del Monte bankruptcy leaves California peach growers in $550M hole"},"content":{"rendered":"

California peach growers have lost $550 million in contracts from food giant Del Monte when the 135-year-old company declared bankruptcy last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody wins in a situation like this. We\u2019re all losing,\u201d Sutter County supervisor and peach grower Karm Bains told the Sacramento Bee<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"CansCanned peaches made by Del Monte Foods Co. sit on a shelf. Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody might be hurting a little bit more than their neighbor, depending on the size and the scale of what you had. But it\u2019s devastating. And we still don\u2019t know what to expect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bankruptcy upset a California peach industry reliant on large, long-term contracts with Del Monte<\/p>\n

One Yuba County grower told the Bee that he would have to rip up his peach trees because no one bought his cannery, which was under a 20-year contract with Del Monte.<\/p>\n

The grower, Sarb Johl, said no other companies offered such a sweet deal. Some buyers approached with offered short-term deals that wouldn\u2019t take nearly the same amount of peaches that Del Monte would have.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just getting into making some profits out of it, but, unfortunately, it\u2019s gonna have to be removed,\u201d Johl said.<\/p>\n

The California Canning Peach Association estimated one processor offered deals for 24,000 tons of peaches, a third of what was delivered to Del Monte last year, according to the Bee.<\/p>\n

\"WorkersWorkers harvesting peaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo thirds of the growers are going to be, basically, just left out to dry,\u201d Johl said.<\/p>\n

Growers publicly mourned the company at an annual event for the California Canning Peach Association earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have witnessed over the last seven months is the death of an extended family member,\u201d association president Rich Hudgins told the Bee.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019re all feeling the loss. We\u2019re all feeling it in different ways. But it\u2019s real.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California peach growers have lost $550 million in contracts from food giant Del Monte when the 135-year-old company…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14026,7,9,8,40241,21059,4182,3586],"class_list":{"0":"post-195451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-bankruptcy","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-farms","13":"tag-fruit","14":"tag-metro","15":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}