AgroFresh Solutions announces the acquisition of Pace International, including its domestic and overseas operations. Prior to the transaction, Pace was a subsidiary of Valent BioSciences, a Sumitomo Chemical Co. group company.

Pace is a respected global provider of sustainable post-harvest solutions, equipment and technical services. The acquisition of Pace bolsters AgroFresh's presence in key fruit-growing regions in North and South America and further enables the company to support its global customers with quality and freshness solutions for high value and highly perishable crops.

"This acquisition enables us to take another important step towards our vision — to be regarded by customers as the post-harvest partner of choice. We are excited to bring the combined portfolios, technical expertise and services of both companies to customers," says Clint Lewis, CEO at AgroFresh. "Bringing together our two companies allows us to better address the complete needs of customers across a broad array of crops, markets and at every step in the fresh supply chain, ultimately helping customers produce and deliver an abundant supply of quality fresh produce, sustainably."

In addition to integrating the Pace business into the company, AgroFresh and Valent BioSciences plan to develop a strategic collaboration to accelerate the development of innovation to address the most pressing challenges in the freshness protection space. This collaboration aims to capitalize on the expertise and technology pipeline of Valent BioSciences to develop new post-harvest products, services and digital solutions and to leverage AgroFresh's global scale and reach to bring them to market.

"Acquisition of the Pace business by AgroFresh will create a post-harvest solutions platform that benefits customers and the food protection industry as a whole through stronger global reach, enhanced services and additional innovation capabilities," says Salman Mir, President and CEO of Valent BioSciences. "We are excited to collaborate with AgroFresh in developing and commercializing new products, technologies and services that will address key customer challenges." 

AgroFresh Solutions Inc. is a portfolio company of Paine Schwartz Partners, a global leader in sustainable food chain investing. Deutsche Bank served as financial advisor and Morrison & Foerster served as AgroFresh's legal advisor for the transaction.