Chiquita bananas come to Seaport Manatee, joining a growing list of tropical imports
The temptation is to say that Chiquita bananas have started arriving in bunches at Seaport Manatee, but in fact they are arriving by the shipload.
Chiquita began chartering space on Del Monte ships arriving at SeaPort Manatee about one month ago.
“This will bring additional good produce to the port,” Carlos Buquersas, executive director of Seaport Manatee, said on Thursday.
The decision by Chiquita to begin importing bananas at SeaPort Manatee is a vote of confidence in port’s ability to efficiently handle and move its cargo, Buqueras said.
“Every moment that it sits here, the company is losing money,” he said.
The Chiquita bananas originate in Central America and arrive at Seaport Manatee every other Monday. The shipment are expected to eventually become weekly.
About 1.2 billion bananas are imported annually at SeaPort Manatee.
“We are the banana kings, the pineapple kings and the avocado kings. We’re No. 1 in the country in imports of fresh orange juice,” Buqueras said.
The Chiquita brand traces its start to the United Fruit Company in 1899, produced by the merger of Boston Fruit Company and the Minor C. Keith Railroad Company.
“Before we came along, bananas were not a staple of people’s diets like they are today. Then we made the banana a household name by becoming the first fruit company to have our own fleet of ships — achieving worldwide distribution. Now, you can get ripe, delicious Chiquita bananas almost anywhere in the world,” the company says on its website.
“There are about 400 varieties of bananas. Americans and Europeans are most familiar with the Cavendish banana. Most Chiquita bananas are of the Cavendish variety but we’ve different varieties of bananas in our product catalog.,” the company says.
For more information on Chiquita Brands, visit https://chiquitabrands.com/.
This story was originally published February 21, 2022 at 12:47 PM.
