Port of Wilmington

Chiquita has signed an 11-year, multimillion-dollar lease with the Diamond State Port Corporation (DSPC), owners of the Port of Wilmington, that will keep the marketer at the Delaware port until 2019.

In 2007, Chiquita directed 52 ship-calls to Wilmington and unloaded and loaded over 45,000 containers at the port. A recent report credits the marketer with generating over US$21m in annual business revenue for the port, creating and sustaining 400 stable jobs and producing over US$1.5m per year in regional taxes. When extended over the life of this new agreement Chiquita’s economic impact totals over US$230m in business revenue and US$16.5m in regional taxes.

Chiquita moved its east coast operations to Wilmington in 1988, first with conventional break-bulk ship service, and later that year with a weekly containerised banana service from Central America. In the past two decades, not only has the marketer continued to grow its tropical fruit programme at the port, but also has chose Wilmington as its US east coast distribution centre for Chilean fruit imports.

“We are very pleased with the new long-term lease at the Port of Wilmington. It will enable Chiquita to continue leveraging Wilmington’s superior perishable supply-chain capabilities for the next 11 years,” said Deverl Maserang, vice president of North American product supply and logistics for Chiquita. “From Wilmington, we can quickly and cost-effectively reach key distribution centres as far as Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces of Canada in the north, and in the US as far west as the Mississippi and as far south as North Carolina.”

Founded in 1923, the Port of Wilmington is a full service mid-Atlantic seaport on the Delaware River strategically located to provide overnight access to 200m North American consumers. It ranks as the world’s top banana port, and the nation’s leading gateway for imports of fresh fruit and juice concentrates. An economic engine for the State of Delaware and the region, it is responsible for over 19,000 jobs, US$409m in business revenue and US$28m in annual local taxes.