Posts Tagged “Delaware River ports”
Delaware River Valley seaports should reach an all-time high this fall and winter with fresh fruit and vegetable imports.
Peru and Chile are driving the key growth with increased volume and more varied production from growers.
Chilean imports at Philadelphia started 50 years ago.
The port’s reefer container cargo has grown by an average of 12 percent since 2012.
PhilaPort is the brand used by the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, a Pennsylvania agency located in Philadelphia.
Nomenclature and statistical references for the Delaware River are complex because there are major port facilities in three neighboring states.
Thirty miles south of Philadelphia, the Port of Wilmington, Delaware, offers a huge and expanding fresh produce import trade. In Gloucester City, NJ, facing Pennsylvania from across the wide river, are massive dock and warehouse facilities owned by Holt Logistics Corp.
Countless businesses along the river and scattered throughout this sprawling metropolitan area coordinate with state and federal agencies to build their fruit business.
Family businesses owned by the Holt’s, Manfredi’s, Procacci’s and Kopke’s, and other families, have invested countless millions of dollars to boost port cold storage and other infrastructure.
Americold, Lineage, and other cold warehouses are also expanding to meet demand.
Manfredi Cos., Inc., of Kennett Square, PA offers extensive cold storage space, as well as transportation, logistics, and repacking services to all Delaware Valley docks.
Manfredi used to used imports from the area to fill seasonal gaps of domestic products, but now is importing the year-round. The company also notes offshore growers are making significant investments for volume growth for the next 15 years.
Summer citrus imports historically preceded a market void before Peru filled the market. Now for Manfredi, imported citrus is in its warehouse12 months a year, creating a different approach to warehouse planning.
Peruvian fruit production has been arriving earlier and earlier into the Delaware River, with the first ships of 2022 arriving in July. Peruvian grapes came into the market this September as a precursor to the Chilean deal.
Grapes and blueberries are Manfredi’s largest-volume Peruvian products. Avocados rank third. Peruvian citrus and mangos are also up for the cold storage.
Moroccan Clementines arrive in the fall and winter. For this season, Manfredi awaits Moroccan growers’ projections, although they are expected to be similar to last season.
Manfredi has recently been working with Brazilian mango growers to have a new program into the Delaware River. Refrigerated containers of Brazilian grapes began arriving here late last summer.
PhilaPort notes Brazil, South Africa’s Western Cape, North Africa, Spain, and Portugal, are all looking to increase volumes for delivery in the Delaware River.
PhilaPort on April 27 announced the maiden call of a new MSC service to the Port of Philadelphia. Running the route named “Indus 2” is the 6,730-TEU (20-foot Equivalent Unit) container vessel MSC Michaela.
Indus 2 embarks from Mundra, India. Subsequent calls are Nhava Sheva, India, and after the Suez Canal, there are stops in Gioia Tauro, Italy; Barcelona, Spain; Sines, Portugal; and then on to Halifax, ending at Philadelphia’s Packer Avenue Marine Terminal.
PhilaPort credits Packer Avenue Terminal operator, Holt Logistics, with doing a great job with the customer base and made Indus 2 a reality.
Indus 2 offers opportunities for cold chain produce volume increases from Mediterranean countries. These may include frozen Egyptian vegetables and Italian gourmet meats.
The Port of Wilmington, Delaware last week received the first fresh fruit of the winter season for the United States, for distribution throughout the East Coast of the U.S. and Canada.
The fruit arrived on The Pacific Mermaid, a refrigerated vessel operated by Trans Global Shipping N.V. of the Global Reefers service. The boat’s cargo had nearly 618,500 boxes of fresh cherries, blueberries, apricots, peaches, nectarines and table grapes.
This was the sixth consecutive year Delaware has received the initial break bulk shipment of Chilean winter fruit, not only on the Delaware River, but in the U.S. The Port of Wilmington expects this season to receive at least two dozen more shiploads of fruit from the Chilean ports of Valparaiso, Coquimbo and Caldera.
Over 50 percent of the Chilean fruit sent to U.S. markets travels through Delaware River ports, with Chile becoming Wilmington’s largest refrigerated storage customer during the Southern Hemisphere growing season.
Last season, the port handled over 18.65 million boxes of Chilean fruit, a 10 percent increase over the 2013-2014 season.
More than 2,000 people work at the port and more than 750 jobs are tied to the Chilean fruit trade, which generates about $40 million in personal income for those involved and $4 million in tax revenue.
The ports of the Delaware River are growing and expanding services for the global fruit trade, offering more loading opportunities for refrigerated trucking operations.
International produce trade is originating from countries such as Peru and Uruguay, which are expanding in their role to export fresh fruits and vegetables to the United States. Chile remains an enormous produce supplier, as that trade has become year around. Central American and South American banana trade remains strong as always. South Africa, Spain and Morocco are building their export volumes to the United States. Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras, Costa Rica Guatemala and Brazil are among Latin America’s strong suppliers of fresh produce. All of these countries, and more, are shipping product through the Delaware River ports.
Bananas are coming into Wilmington, DE, Gloucester City, NJ, and Philadelphia by Dole, Chiquita, Del Monte, Turbana and Banacol .
Soft-peel citrus has become a major commodity for seaports and their service providers here both during the summer and winter months.
The area also has independent cold storages such as Manfredi Cold Storage in Kennett Square, PA, and Lucca Freezer & Cold Storage Inc., in Mullica Hill, NJ. These cold storages have been or increasing the efficiency of the ports with not only large, modern cold storages but also repacking and other services to benefit the refrigerated commodities.
Uruguay will start exporting more summer citrus. That country shipped a handful of containers last year. This year they plan to ship a lot more. Peru is a big growth market. Costa Rica is always a staple with pineapples and bananas. Ecuador is a staple. Chile is huge as well.
by Joseph N. DiStefano, Philly.com
Mexican ocean shippers met with South Jersey vegetable growers and Philadelphia-area port executives at the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market on Essington Ave. in Southwest Philly recently to try and convince shipping lines to establish a regular sea import-export service between the Delaware River ports and Mexico’s chief Atlantic port of Vera Cruz.
The four-day Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic route would compete with deregulated North American trucking lines sending General Electric locomotive parts, Heinz pickles, Hersheys chocolates and Alcoa aluminum ingots and other Pennsylvania exports totalling $3 billion South to Mexico last year, while importing $3.4 billion of Mexican fruit, vegetables and electronics, including about one-quarter of the produce terminal’s yearly volume, says PennPORTS, the state-backed port advocacy group.
Mexico’s chief port administrator, Fernando Gamboa-Rosas, who calls Mexico “la panza del mundo” (Belly of the World) because of its Atlantic and Pacific ports and its high volume of farm exports; and Juan Ignacio Fernandez-Carbajal, director of the Veracruz port, which is the focus of a $5 billion expansion campaign designed to stimulate Mexican trade.