Westlake Village, CA - November 27, 2000

Dole Fresh Vegetables, Inc., a subsidiary of Dole Food Company, Inc. (NYSE: DOL) today announced the selection of Tradingproduce.com, Inc. as its e-commerce solution.

"We look forward to beginning to offer our customers a cost-effective e-commerce solution where both our fresh produce customers and ourselves will benefit from the advantages of e-commerce," said David DeLorenzo, President and Chief Operating Officer of Dole Food Company, Inc.

"Tradingproduce.com has demonstrated the flexibility and willingness to meet our needs with amazing speed," said Larry Kern, President of Worldwide Fresh Vegetables, Packaged Salads and Non-Tropical Fresh Fruit. "Our criteria were simple: the e-commerce solution had to be secure, easy to use, flexible and cost effective."

"We are impressed with their leading-edge technology, functional capabilities, and speed, which they demonstrated in integrating their platform into our internal sales order entry system," said Rick Bravo, Vice President of Sales, Dole Fresh Vegetables, Inc. "This will be a significant value-added service for our fresh produce customers, and we are ready to start using the TradingProduce.com website with many of our major customers."

"We are excited about working with Dole, which has a proven track record as a forward-thinking company," said Rob Bonavito, Chief Executive Officer of Tradingproduce.com, Inc.

Tradingproduce.com does not charge its members a buy/sell transaction fee and provides significant cost savings throughout the entire process. Customers can move the entire transaction process electronically through the Internet to their own accounting system with no paperwork involved. The Tradingproduce.com business model is designed to create revenue from proprietary value-added services, including logistics, financial services, analysis tools and back office integration.

Dole Food Company, Inc., with 1999 revenues of $5.1 billion, is the world's largest producer and marketer of high-quality fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and fresh-cut flowers, and markets a growing line of packaged foods.

Tradingproduce.com, Inc. is a privately held company backed by the $950 million investment fund Bay Isle in San Francisco, Silicon Valley private investors, and vTraction, an affiliate of Rabobank, which is one of the world's largest and strongest financial institutions with $290 billion in assets.

This release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Forward looking statements, which are based on management's current expectations, are generally identifiable by the use of terms such as "believe," "will," "continue," and similar expressions. The potential risks and uncertainties that could cause Dole's results to differ materially from those expressed or implied herein include weather-related phenomena; market responses to industry volume pressures; product and raw materials supplies and pricing; changes in interest and currency exchange rates; economic crises in developing countries; and quotas, tariffs and other governmental actions. Further information on the factors that could affect Dole's financial results is included in its Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K.