I grew up with Del Monte canned peaches and pineapples, this was because during most of my childhood my Dad worked for Del Monte Foods.
In the early sixties he helped to set up the company in Great Britain and in 1965 he traveled to the U.S. to study the latest sales and merchandising techniques being used by supermarkets in New York, Kansas City, Salt Lake City and California. After his tour he attended a two week sales training session from Del Monte in San Francisco both as a student and as an instructor and then he travelled back to New York to attend Cornell University's annual National Sales Trainers' conference.
In 1967 Dad became the Regional Sales Manager for Scotland and Northern Ireland so we moved to East Kilbride, near Glasgow. Dad was very successful in Scotland and was able to increase sales of Del Monte in this area, as well as playing lots of golf.
Whilst sorting through papers and photos belonging to my parents I found a couple of letters congratulating my Dad on his good work as well as some photos of him giving training sessions and a newspaper article about his trip to the U.S. which was featured in the Grocer of October 1965.
Dad was a great salesman and could sell anything, in fact later in life he worked for awhile for a cemetery selling grave plots.
In the 1980's there was a commercial for Del Monte - " The Del Monte man says yes", for me Dad was the Del Monte man.
