Posts Tagged “Port of Tampa”
Dole pineapples and bananas to the United States will pass through Port Tampa Bay starting in late July, via a new shipper service according to the Tampa Bay newspaper.
In addition to fruit, the direct weekly route linking Tampa, Honduras and Guatemala will also deliver containerized shipping of cargo such as automobiles and other commodities. Two ships, the MV Dole Maya and MV Dole Aztec, will deliver all goods and materials from Central America to Tampa; Gulfport, Miss.; and Freeport, Texas.
One reason Tampa was picked was a 135,000-square-foot refrigerated warehouse that opened in 2018, allowing the port to receive shipments of bananas, pineapples, limes, mangoes and other fruit from Central America.
“Our cold storage and port terminal operations facility is ideally positioned to serve the Tampa/Orlando I-4 corridor, which is Florida’s largest and fastest growing market, and reaching well beyond,” developer Richard Corbett of Port Logistics Refrigerated Services, which operates the warehouse, said in a statement.
John Trummel, vice president and general manager of Dole’s commercial cargo division, said in a statement the new Tampa route would enable the company and its non-agricultural clients new ways to reach their destinations “faster and more competitively.”
While Dole Food Company is the world’s leading commercial producer of pineapples and bananas. Port president and CEO Paul Anderson highlighted the opportunity to import all kinds of commodities.
“This marks a major milestone in our strategic efforts to continue to diversify our cargo mix and expand our container volume, which is now our fastest growing line of business,” Anderson said in a statement.
Six container ships will be replacing existing boats owned by Del Monte Fresh Produce for its East Coast fleet used for delivering produce from Central and South America to the U.S. In other news, the Port of Tampa is now receiving pineapples.
The first ship is estimated to be ready in late 2019, according to a news release.
The vessels were designed by Shanghai Merchant Ship Design & Research Institute in Shanghai, China, and are being built at the Shanghai Merchant Ship Design & Research Institute, Guangzhou, China.
Each vessel will have a capacity of 634 40-foot high cube container capacity, according to the release.
Dennis Christou, vice president of marketing for Del Monte, said the new container vessels will increase the company’s tonnage capacity and “speed to market.”
“The new energy efficient vessels are designed to meet the most stringent (International Maritime Organization) emission control regulations coming into effect in 2020,” Christou said.
Christou noted Del Monte was one of the first large-scale banana companies to receive SCS Carbon Neutral Certification for banana operations in Costa Rica.
The new ships will reduce air pollution and fuel consumption.
“These new ships are an extension of our sustainability commitment on the high seas,” he said in the release.
Port Tampa Bay
Port Logistics Refrigerated Services at Port Tampa Bay, FL, recently received its first shipment of pineapples.
Chestnut Hills Farms of Miami was the recipient of the initial arrival, which came from Costa Rica to the cold storage company at the port. Refrigerated containers of the fruit arrived at the cold storage facility several weeks ago. The shipment, loaded at the Port of Moin in Costa Rica, was delivered by the Seacat Line in a new ship, the M/V Juice Express.
“This new routing provides us with excellent access to serve our customers in Florida and throughout the Southeastern United States,” Raul Romero, president and chief operating officer at Chestnut Hill Farms, said in the release. “We expect this will be the first of regular ongoing shipments.”
The new Port Logistics Refrigerated Services on-dock cold storage facility has on-site USDA/Customs and Border Protection inspection and fumigation services. The 130,000-square-foot facility has 102 refrigerated container plugs and a dedicated mobile harbor crane.
In February, the facility made possible the first shipments of bananas in more than 20 years at the port. The shipment, of more than 3,900 pallets of Chiquita-brand bananas, originated from Ecuador.