"We delivered a fourth consecutive year of comparable profitability, improving our results over last year, particularly in the fourth quarter, which benefitted from our efforts to drive down costs as well as from the refinancing activities we completed earlier in the year," said Fernando Aguirre, chairman and chief executive officer. "We had a much better year in bananas driven by higher pricing and volume in North America, and initial recovery in Europe. Our salads business did not perform as well as expected, and we've taken a number of corrective actions and adapted our structure and strategy to be more successful and profitable." 

Aguirre added, "Going forward we are focused on growing revenues and profitability in core banana and salads products, using our existing capacity and capabilities to enter new markets and providing a more comprehensive product offering. We will continue enhancing the efficiency and flexibility of our supply chain and removing costs from our business. We have made solid progress in realigning our salad business structure, reconfiguring banana shipping, reducing debt and consolidating our corporate structure through our move to Charlotte. We are looking forward to another year of progress in improving the foundations of our business and its long-term profitability."

 From the February 22, 2012, Prepared Foods' Daily News.