Port Manatee provides ships-to-shelves link for Southwest Florida and beyond | Column
For consumers of Southwest and Central Florida and beyond, Port Manatee serves as a vibrant ships-to-shelves gateway for myriad commodities, furnishing a vital global supply chain link for everything from tropical fruits and juices to appliances and lumber to fuel for filling gas tanks.
When, for example, families throughout Florida and as far north as Canada delight in bananas bearing that signature red “Del Monte” sticker, they are more than likely savoring a fruit imported into Port Manatee from Latin America on a Fresh Del Monte Produce vessel and expeditiously moved via the firm’s on-port regional distribution center.
In addition to handling bananas at a pace of more than 1 billion a year, the Del Monte hub annually moves imports of nearly 50 million pineapples and 35 million avocados, carrying on a Del Monte relationship with Port Manatee that is now in its fourth decade.
Since established at Port Manatee in 2014, World Direct Shipping not only has been importing fresh produce as well, but the Port Manatee-based ocean carrier’s ships that cross the Gulf of Mexico also carry Mexican-made Samsung refrigerators, washers, dryers and air-conditioning units distributed to consumers throughout the U.S. Southeast.
Meanwhile, Citrosuco North America vessels arrive from Brazil at Port Manatee docks bearing some 57 million gallons a year of orange juice, which is then blended with local product and transported onward to grocery shelves and kitchen tables.
Also from Brazil come G2 Ocean ships laden with lumber destined for stores of Lowe’s Home Improvement and The Home Depot throughout the region. Most recently, these forest product imports have been joined at Port Manatee by plywood shipped from China, as wood has enjoyed rising demand during the COVID-19 pandemic as homeowners are increasingly tackling improvement projects.
Most notable, though, on the forest products front may be the wood pulp carried by G2 Ocean from Brazil, as much of this material winds up being made into much-in-demand toilet paper that quickly flies off grocers’ shelves.
Sugar comes through Port Manatee from Mexico and Guatemala, while much of the industrial-grade salt arriving from Turkey and Chile heads to pool supply store shelves.
And Southwest Florida consumers pump into their tanks at convenience stores of RaceTrac, Speedway, Wawa, Love’s and others fuel shipped into Port Manatee aboard tanker vessels delivering it across the Gulf of Mexico from refineries of Texas and Louisiana at a rate of almost 400 million gallons a year.
Yet another commodity imported into Port Manatee is aluminum brought by Aluar from Argentina. That material is used in jobs-generating U.S. manufacturing of many goods, including vehicle engines, wheels, pool enclosures, wheelchair ramps and — alas — shelves themselves.
Speaking of generating employment, Port Manatee directly and indirectly supports more than 27,000 jobs throughout the region while delivering annual economic impacts surpassing $3.9 billion a year, all without taking a penny from local property taxes.
While those impressive impact numbers may be tough to grasp, those bananas, pineapples and avocados, that orange juice, those appliances, that wood and toilet paper and all that gasoline provide tangible evidence on almost a daily basis that Port Manatee reliably and diversely delivers for families of Florida and points beyond.
Carlos Buqueras is executive director of Port Manatee.