Posts Tagged “Wonderful Citrus”
Produce related company acquisitions seem to pick up as the economy improves and here are just three examples of moves by operations on both coasts of the U.S. From Premier Citrus in Florida, to the Cold Storage Co. in Oregon and Volm Cos. in Washington state, expansions have occurred either through buy-outs are building new facilities.
Premier Citrus of Vero Beach, FL has acquired Greene River Marketing, also based in Vero Beach.
The acquisition allows Premier Citrus to expand its fruit volume and return marketing of its domestic fruit back in-house.
DNE World Fruit, of Ft. Pierce, FL was acquired in February by Wonderful Citrus, previously marketed Premier’s domestic fruit the past three seasons. Greene River will continue operating under the same name this season, but will eventually transition into part of Premier Citrus Marketing.
The purchase means Premier will be the largest domestic marketer in the Indian River growing region.
Oregon Cold Storage Opens
Cold Storage Co. of Salem, OR has opened its second facility in Salem., with 6 million cubic feet of new cold storage capacity. The 94-year-old, family-owned refrigerated warehousing company’s newest facility is in the Mill Creek Corporate Center in Salem. The cold storage is 176,000-square-feet. The 34-acre, 26,000-pallet operation will serve as a hub for food processors
With the second facility in Salem coming online, Henningsen now offers over 60 million total cubic feet of temperature controlled space in 11 facilities across the United States.
Washington Distribution Center Opens
Volm Cos. Inc., based in Antigo, WI, has opened a new 90,000-square-foot facility Pasco, WA. The new distribution facility is located less than two miles from the former location. The facility houses warehouse space for inventory, LENO manufacturing equipment, equipment and parts area as well as increased office space for the growing business. Volm came to the Tri-Cities area in 2007 through an acquisition.
A Florida port experiences a record month for imports, while another acquisition occurs in the citrus shipping industry.
Central and South American fresh produce imports have been credited with causing a record breaking month – December -for Port Everglades in Florida’s Broward County. Those imports have been steadily increasing, according to port officials.
Port Everglades had volume of 104,590 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units), according to a news release, making December the highest output month in the port’s 90-year history.
December’s volume was 15 percent over December 2015.
“Our customers are bringing in higher volumes of consumer goods such as produce, clothing and household goods as the region’s population increases,” Port Everglades chief executive and port Director Steven Cernak said in the release. “It’s an indication of a strengthening economy.”
A good part of the increase is due to shipments from perishable products from Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. Other regions also showed increases, Cernak said.
“Port Everglades helped spearhead a pilot program to bring refrigerated produce from South America directly to Florida, when it was previously restricted to only coming into northern U.S. ports,” Jim Pyburn, Port Everglades director of business development, said in the release. “The pilot program was a great success and now we are seeing a wider variety of produce coming to South Florida faster and fresher than when it was trucked here from the Northeast.”
Wonderful Citrus acquires DNE
Wonderful Citrus of Delano, CA has acquired citrus marketer DNE World Fruit of Ft. Pierce, FL, citrus exporter DNE International and the assets of World Pack Cold Storage, a division of DNE Imports.
Wonderful Citrus is now the top importer of counter-seasonal citrus products in the U.S. since the purchase and the move doubles the company’s grapefruit position, according to a news release. Along with DNE’s citrus marketing and import business, Wonderful acquires World Pack’s distribution center in New Jersey.
This will not be the first time Wonderful is importing citrus. The company had trials in previous years and last year, for the first time, created programs from countries including Chile, Peru, Australia and South Africa.
DNE has imported from those countries as well as others.
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Rimmed by hills and oil derricks, stretch miles of mandarin orange groves along the Maricopa Highway at the southwestern end of the San Joaquin Valley. These used to be cotton fields, but is now the epicenter of an agricultural boom that has turned mandarins into a rising star.
Since that expansion started in the late 1990s, California’s mandarin plantings have increased 10-fold, from 5,000 to 50,000 acres. The state now ships 92 percent of the nation’s mandarin crop, while Florida, troubled by citrus greening disease and obsolete varieties with seeds, has had its share drop to 8 percent, from 66 percent.
In the process, thanks to new offerings and skillful marketing, mandarins — popularly known as tangerines — have become very popular with American consumers. Mandarin consumption has doubled, to five pounds a year for every American, while orange sales have declined.
Native to China and northeastern India, mandarins are one of five original types of citrus (along with pummelos, citrons, kumquats and papedas) from which all others, like oranges and grapefruit, are derived. Until recently, because most mandarins were relatively small, delicate or full of seeds, they remained less cultivated than other citrus in the United States.
In the late 1990s, two companies with deep pockets and marketing savvy, Sun Pacific and Paramount Citrus (now Wonderful Citrus), gambled big with huge mandarin plantings on the Maricopa Highway, 25 miles southwest of Bakersfield, where they were isolated from other citrus whose pollen could make the fruit seedy.