Del Monte Foods Standardizes on Cognos Enterprise Business Intelligence

— Taps Cognos as its strategic partner to deliver improved
business data analysis and reporting across the company —

BURLINGTON, MA, March 21, 2005 — Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in enterprise business intelligence (EBI) and corporate performance management (CPM), announced today that Del Monte Foods (NYSE: DLM) is standardizing on Cognos EBI to drive greater operational efficiencies across the company.

With nearly 3,500 products and 33 brands, Del Monte Foods is one of the largest producers, distributors and marketers of premium quality, branded and private label food and pet products in the United States. After Del Monte merged with Heinz’ U.S. StarKist® seafood, North American pet food and pet snacks, U.S. private label soup, College Inn® broth, and U.S. baby food businesses, management set out to find an enterprise BI solution that could provide the company with multi-dimensional trends analysis and reporting to help reduce costs, increase profit margins, and enable timely, informative decision-making. Standardizing on a single BI platform was also critical to ensure data and reporting consistency across the newly formed enterprise.

After a rigorous evaluation that extended beyond assessing vendor technologies, Del Monte selected Cognos to lead the company’s Enterprise Business Intelligence Strategy (EBIS). Using the Cognos Enterprise BI series for data analysis, ‘at-a-glance’ visualization of key performance metrics, and business and production reporting, Del Monte executives will be able to filter out relevant corporate information, drill into their data to uncover factors that are affecting performance, and then adjust accordingly. For instance, Cognos will underpin the company’s customer and partner supply chain, analyzing performance to optimize forecast collaboration, better track fulfillment, or “Fill Rates”, and improve operational efficiency. Cognos will also be used by Sales and Marketing to ensure a more effective utilization of trade funds with retailers to drive incremental consumption.

“Integrating and managing these businesses requires more than just a technical business intelligence solution; it requires a strategy, methodology and symbiotic relationship with a BI provider who understands our business, and is willing to work in step with us to simplify organization-wide processes and execute against our business goals,” said Andy Wojewodka, director of business systems and decision support at Del Monte Foods. “Cognos gives us a BI solution that couples the highest degree of analysis necessary for effective performance management, with the ease-of-use that allows every user to actively participate in the decision-making process. Information will now be leveraged in a more meaningful way to help drive growth.”

“Success in this market is predicated on developing a strong understanding of the consumer – their needs, spending habits, reactions to market influencers, and other factors. This deep level of insight is not possible without relevant technologies, such as business intelligence, that can give executives transparent visibility of the corporate data they need to make the right decisions,” said Paul Hoy, director of manufacturing industry solutions at Cognos. “By selecting Cognos as their strategic business intelligence partner, Del Monte has embarked on the right path to aligning the entire organization with the needs of their consumer base, streamlining operations and, ultimately, maximizing bottom line performance.”

Cognos is a recognized leader in delivering business intelligence and corporate performance management solutions for the consumer goods industry. In fact, 19 of the top 20 consumer goods companies in the world have invested their trust in Cognos. In addition, Cognos was recently named to Consumer Goods Technology (CGT) Magazine’s 2005 Best in Class Rankings for business intelligence, as voted annually by CGT readers.

ABOUT DELMONTE:
Del Monte Foods is one of the largest and most well known producers, distributors and marketers of premium quality, branded and private label food and pet products for the U.S. retail market, generating over $3 billion in pro forma net sales in fiscal 2004. With a powerful portfolio of brands including Del Monte®, Contadina®, StarKist®, S&W®, Nature's Goodness™, College Inn®, 9Lives®, Kibbles 'n Bits®, Pup-Peroni®, Snausages®, and NawSomes!®, Del Monte products are found in nine out of ten American households. For more information on Del Monte Foods Company (NYSE:DLM), visit the company's website at www.delmonte.com.

ABOUT COGNOS:
Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software and services that help companies drive, monitor and understand corporate performance.

Cognos delivers the next level of competitive advantage – Corporate Performance Management (CPM) – achieved through the strategic application of BI on an enterprise scale. Our integrated CPM solution helps customers drive performance through planning; monitor performance through scorecarding; and understand performance through business intelligence.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers.  For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com.