Progressive Produce Acquires Mission Produce Asparagus Business

Los Angeles and Oxnard, CA — In a joint announcement, Progressive Produce Corporation of Los Angeles and Mission Produce, Inc. of Oxnard announced that Progressive has acquired Mission’s asparagus business. Mission, one of the world’s largest avocado growers and marketers, cited their intent to focus on their expanding avocado business as the reason they decided to divest their asparagus business. “Our asparagus growers and customers are too important for us to leave this business without a plan to turn it over to a first class operation that shares our values of honoring commitments and great customer service. We sought out Progressive as the company we wanted to transition it to from the very start and were glad they were interested,” said Steve Barnard, president of Mission.

Progressive, a 46 year old company based in Los Angeles, was mostly a potato and onion grower and marketer until 12 years ago when it started expanding into other commodities. Mission entered the asparagus business 8 years ago, and Progressive entered it in partnership with Keystone Fruit Marketing, Inc. of Greencastle, PA at about the same time. “We had a plan to increase our acres every year in order to be a solid year round grower in this commodity when we began our program. The addition of Mission’s excellent growers will accelerate that plan and we are excited about it,” said Jim Leimkuhler, president of Progressive. Leimkuhler added that Mission has pledged to transition the business in a way that supports our joint commitment to provide the strongest possible service to our customers.

The acquisition is effective immediately.

For more information, please contact Jack Gyben at Progressive Produce, 5790 Peachtree Street, Los Angeles, CA 90040 323-890-8100. jack@progressiveproduce.com, or William Tarleton at Mission Produce, Inc.

Source: Progressive Produce Corp. &  Mission Produce, Inc.