Posts Tagged “Parker Farms”
Here’s an update on Chiquita’s involvement with Port Everglades. On another front, Parker Farms will be a new shipper of Vidalia onions.
The Broward County Commission voted recently to terminate the lease for most of Chiquita Brands International’s facilities at Port Everglades. It was leasing 13.1 acres with 14,097 square feet of offices and 28,352 square feet of warehouses to support its banana shipments. Under the termination, the Chiquita would keep 6.59 acres of land under a short-term lease, but not the buildings.
The move does not impact Chiquita’s headquarters at the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach, where it moved in 2015. The company also has a separate warehouse lease at the port for a banana ripening facility that would remain in place.
Chiquita first leased space at Port Everglades in 2013 and later that year extended its lease to Sept. 30, 2018.
In 2014, Chiquita signed a deal with Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC) to provide cargo service for its bananas, so Chiquita started using MSC’s facilities at Port Everglades for its shipments. Then in 2015, Chiquita was sold to Cutrale-Safra.
Port Everglades officials contacted Chiquita about its plans and the company said it wanted to divest its terminal and base all of its shipments out of MSC’s terminal.
Under the proposed termination of the deal to be executed by March 1st.
“The early termination of the Chiquita lease agreement will benefit the port by creating opportunities for the currently dormant Chiquita land and the warehouse and office space to be made available for other Port users to expand their businesses and generate new revenue through both ship calls and cargo throughput,” the county memo stated. “The port will also continue to receive grid revenue from Chiquita for the 6.59 acre parcel they will continue to use.”
Parker Farms
Parker Farms, based in Oak Grove, VA, is adding Vidalia sweet onions to its program this year.
The sweet onions, which will be sourced from B.G. Williams Farms in Uvalda, GA., will be sold under the company’s new Diamond Sweet label. B.G. Williams grows about 400 acres of sweet onions annually.
Park Farms plans to eventually source sweet onions from more regions so it can offer the product the year around, as it does with the other commodities it supplies. The company will also ship sweet potatoes and seedless watermelons under the Diamond Sweet label.
Parker Farms is a longtime shipper of sweet corn, broccoli, squash, bell peppers and cucumbers.