of our supply chain by 15 million miles, which is the equivalent of approximately 4 million gallons of diesel. Importantly, we expect to benefit from productivity and transformation savings again in fiscal 2009.

Delivering Products People Want

At Del Monte Foods, we are focused on “delivering products people want,” the theme for this year’s annual report. People genuinely want our products, and our products connect solidly with two core consumer trends. First, we benefit from the growing desire on the part of Americans to eat healthy, which generally translates into rising demand for fruits and vegetables. Second, we benefit from the growing importance of brands and products that strengthen the bonds between pets and families. Many of our promotions are tied directly to these trends, such as Del Monte Foods’ JUST ONE MORE campaign to encourage people to add an additional serving of fruit, vegetables, or tomatoes to their daily diets. In our pet business, our Power of Paws program celebrates and promotes the many positive aspects of the relationships between people and their pets (or, possibly more accurately stated, pets and their people). With our broad portfolio of products and strong brands, we believe Del Monte Foods enjoys a very positive position to benefit from the ongoing opportunities these trends will create.

Actions Taken for a Strong Future

Leveraging the benefit of core consumer trends and our brand-based business fundamentals are critical as we address the challenge of driving earnings in a double-digit inflationary cost environment. To deliver enhanced long-term stockholder value, we have taken specific actions with our portfolio, strategy, and organization to drive improved earnings performance and sustained growth.

Upgrading Our Portfolio: In June 2008, we announced the divestiture of our seafood business, including StarKist, a significant step in the realignment of our portfolio toward higher margin, higher growth businesses. This divestiture is expected to improve our margin structure, eliminate a source of earnings volatility, and reduce our debt leverage.

Accelerating Our Growth Plan: We recently announced a sharpened strategy targeted to accelerate margin accretive growth by investing in our faster growing, value-added, higher margin, branded businesses. Packaged produce, where we have a strong beachhead position, and pet products, where we have an extremely strong portfolio of brands, are the targeted key growth engines of our go-forward strategy. In addition, we are focused on unleashing the full potential of our core brands. To support these goals, we have announced a commitment of significant resources in the form of stepped up investments and people.

Strengthening Our Organization: We recently made two key changes to our organizational structure which we believe will be instrumental in achieving our goals. In fiscal 2008, we named Nils Lommerin to a new position, Chief Operating Officer. Our realigned organizational structure with the COO role deepens Del Monte’s leadership capabilities, including enhancing the connection between strategy and day-to-day execution. We also named Bill Pearce to a new position, Chief Marketing Officer, and announced the centralization of our marketing team in San Francisco. Together, these moves will further enhance Del Monte’s commitment to grow as a more marketing-centric, growth-oriented, innovation-driven company and will also build an even stronger talent pool. I am very pleased by the overall strength of our people at every level of Del Monte Foods; this new organizational

alignment should help us continue to strengthen that team.

Meeting the Challenge

We—and the food industry as a whole—recognize that rising costs will continue to be a challenge in fiscal 2009 and beyond. I believe we have the leadership, portfolio, strategy, talent, brands, and products to address this challenge head on. We are sharpening our focus on our higher margin, higher growth branded businesses. We plan to accelerate our investment and our pace of innovation at every level: brands and products, marketing and promotion, and productivity and efficiency. In response to rising costs, we expect to take pricing actions, backed by the strength of our brands and our position in the marketplace. And we will continue to be vigilant about improving our overall productivity and our cost structure.

For all these reasons, we believe the future of Del Monte Foods is strong. Our more than 8,600 full-time and 9,500 seasonal employees are focused on meeting consumer needs, getting our products to market, continuing to work closely with our customers, and, importantly, successfully addressing the challenges of our rising cost environment. Our team has worked very well together as we have responded to the challenges of fiscal 2008, and I am deeply appreciative of their efforts and enthusiasm.

I look forward to updating you on our progress in fiscal 2009 and on our accomplishments to come.