Fresh Del Monte Moves to Cognos Performance Management Solution

– Cognos consolidation, planning, and business intelligence capabilities combine to provide leading food producer with modern, Web-architected solutions for Office of Finance –

BURLINGTON, MA, March 21, 2006— Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management (CPM), today announced that Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. (NYSE: FDP) is moving to a Cognos performance management solution for its planning, consolidation and management reporting needs.

Fresh Del Monte is a leading global producer and distributor of high-quality fresh and fresh-cut fruit and vegetables, and a top producer and distributor of prepared fruit, vegetables and other products in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In order to achieve greater financial transparency, automate financial processes and improve controls, Fresh Del Monte elected to upgrade its consolidation and management reporting systems.

As Fresh Del Monte grows and expands globally, the diversity of its business operations also scale accordingly. Management requires efficient, flexible, web-architected financial consolidation and planning tools that can easily support business model changes, multi-currency requirements, automate the consolidation process, reduce the time to close and provide greater transparency in alignment with SOX compliance regulations.

The Company selected Cognos’ consolidation, planning, and business intelligence capabilities which are seamlessly integrated for performance management. This decision enables them to replace an existing planning solution and provide decision-makers with multi-dimensional analysis, management reporting dashboards and reporting on operational data – all in one seamless, inter-related solution.

“We are taking a proactive step in modernizing our existing system to use a solution that is ‘owned by finance’ and enables us to respond and support the growing needs of our diverse, global business,” said John F. Inserra, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. “With Cognos, we expect to be able to report on a larger range of dimensions and quickly analyze different financial scenarios. These capabilities will provide greater visibility into the assumptions and drivers used and will save time so our managers can focus on our strategic business performance.”

Cognos performance management solutions provide organizations with a single line of sight across all time horizons. Planning and consolidation combine the forward management view of the business with the current and historical view through a consistent corporate and management reporting environment. This integrated operational and financial view lets organizations proactively address business challenges for greater operational effectiveness.

“Financial consolidation plays a lead role at a corporate level for performance management. Our consolidation capabilities compress the time to close and give users an automated method to make decisions and report with confidence in spite of the fast-changing business environment and regulatory scrutiny,” said Dave Laverty, Senior Vice-President, Global Marketing, Cognos. “Combining financial consolidation with our leading planning and business intelligence capabilities provides decision makers with consistent information, an effective, transparent system of controls, accountability and measurement, and an automated, systemic means to increase performance effectiveness.”

About the Capabilities:
Cognos Controller, Cognos Planning and Cognos Business Intelligence represent the technology layer of the Cognos Performance Management System which aligns technology, best practices and a partner ecosystem to enable organizational agility and improve the decision-making process for organizations by connecting people and goals across operations and management functions with right-time, actionable information.

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 packaged goods companies in the world have invested their trust in Cognos. In addition to Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc., other leading CPG customers include Heinz, Miller Brewing and Del Monte. Cognos was recently named to Consumer Goods Technology (CGT) Magazine’s 2006 Best in Class Rankings for business intelligence, as voted annually by CGT readers. For more information about Cognos solutions for the consumer packaged goods industry, please visit http://www.cognos.com/solutions/industry/manufacturing/index.html

ABOUT FRESH DEL MONTE PRODUCE:
Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. (NYSE: FDP), is one of the world’s leading vertically integrated producers, marketers and distributors of high-quality fresh and fresh-cut fruit and vegetables, as well as a leading producer and distributor of prepared fruit and vegetables, juices, beverages, snacks and desserts in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Fresh Del Monte markets its products worldwide under the Del Monte® brand, a symbol of product quality, freshness and reliability since 1892.

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 serves more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence and performance management 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.