Port of Wilmington benefits host of niche businesses, commodities By Karen E. ThuermerThe Port of Wilmington, a 308-acre full-service deepwater port in Wilmington, Delaware is not in the business of competing with seaports such as neighbor Port of Philadelphia. But as one of the ports on the Delaware River, this port with its seven deepwater general cargo berths and over 5,000 linear feet of pier space, an oil transfer jetty, and a newly constructed 875-foot long auto and Ro-Ro berth serves an important role for the commerce of niche products. For now, the big news at the Port of Wilmington is the construction of a new $7.5 refrigerated warehouse called Warehouse H. The warehouse will be the sixth refrigerated warehouse to be constructed at the port and will increase the port’s refrigerated capacity to 760,000 square feet. “This will make it the largest dockside cold storage facility in the United States,” says Tom Keefer, deputy executive director of the Port of Wilmington. “Warehouse H will be built on approximately 5.5 acres of land adjacent to Dole’s existing container yard, and will encompass 60,000 square divided to three rooms of 30,000 square feet., 20,000, square feet, and 10,000 square feet, including banana ripening rooms.” The facility will also include USDA office space, and Dole’s office space. Dole Fresh Fruit Company (Dole) is Wilmington’s largest customer-tenant. Dole presently leases 47,000 square feet of cold storage warehouse space on a year-round basis, 190,000 square feet during the winter season; and 30 acres for container yard operations. Dole is signing a 15-year lease agreement with the port for use of Warehouse H, and utilize it for year-round storage of tropical fruit, as well as extend its present warehouse and land leases to be coterminous. Bananas and tropical fresh fruit are some of the niche business in which the Port of Wilmington has carved out its reputation. Currently, the port is the leading port in the United States for importation of these products. “Last year tonnage was a bit of a disappointment,” Keefer admits. “But it was not a good growing season for the fruit products due to weather issues and the Medfly. Still, the volume was equal to the proceeding year.” In 2003, Dole alone moved 973,000 tons across the Port of Wilmington. So far this year, the fruit and banana business has been strong at the port, particularly given the fact some shipments that would normally have gone to Gulfport are coming to Wilmington. “Dole and Chiquita are moving full shiploads northbound,” says Keefer. “We are seeing close to 1,000 40-foot containers of business coming to the port as a result of Hurricane Katrina that would have otherwise gone into Gulfport.” Other ships are coming as well that are being diverted and whose cargo needs covered storage. “Some shipments are now going to Gulfport as that seaport resumes some service,” Keefer adds. As part of it normal business, however, this time of the year the Port of Wilmington begins gearing up for the Moroccan Clementine season. “Last year we saw a record volume with 18,000 pallets,” Keefer says. Unlike most tropical fruits and bananas that are offloaded at the port, however, these are then shipped directly to Canada for the Canadian market. The reason: the port’s geographic position on the Eastern Seaboard makes transporting this product quick and efficiently to Canada. Wilmington also serves as the No. 1 US gateway for imported juice concentrates, and palletized frozen beef. Among those juice concentrates is apple juice coming from Argentina. “The apple juice is a high quality concentrate, and is actually a higher quality product for about the same price as that coming from China,” says Keefer. In addition to Dole and Chiquita, Pacific Seaways, Citrosuco North America C&S Shipping and Premier Juices, among others, utilize the Port of Wilmington as their mid-Atlantic distribution hub. Key is the port’s comprehensive cold-chain logistics program that in