- By Leo Quigley, AJOTIncreasingly, retailers who sell fresh fruit and vegetables have moved away from having their produce delivered from a local warehouse and are choosing instead to have it delivered Just In Time by truck in an effort to reduce their costs and deliver a fresher, more appealing product to their customers. This trend has changed the logistics of transporting produce dramatically in recent years and added new complexities and competitive pressures to the terminals, distributors and trucking companies that move produce. MATSON NAVIGATION COMPANY, INC. Matson, with its head office in Oakland, CA, has been in the business of moving fresh produce for over a century and refrigerated containers for 50 years and prides itself on being the leading carrier of containerized freight, automobiles and project cargo between the US Pacific Coast and Hawaii, Guam, China and Micronesia. As Mike Pantaleon, manager, strategic accounts, reefer sales, told AJOT, over the years the company has moved “everything from A to Z.” by ship and barge, including circus animals and roll-on roll-off traffic between the mainland and Hawaii and Guam However, fresh produce makes up a large portion of the company’s traffic. In fact, Matson provides retail outlets in Hawaii and Guam with anything local growers can’t produce and is recognized for its reliability. Pantaleon said that while Matson’s overall business has been declined recently because of the economic downturn, the fresh produce sector has actually grown slightly. He said the company has invested $25 million over the past five years on reefer equipment to transport fresh produce.
Matson
These containers provide customers with temperature controls within one to two degrees and the company makes provisions for customers to choose a modified atmosphere for their shipment of produce if that is required to guarantee maximum freshness. Matson’s long history in the Pacific has given the shipping company the experience and expertise needed to offer a wide diversity of reefer services and a state-of-the-art container tracking system that allows customers to track their chilled cargo. The web-based system enables customers to track the status of a container throughout its movement within the Matson system and to quickly find the current status of their container, as well as movement and shipment details. PORT HUENEME Cars, trucks, heavy equipment and fresh fruit are the life blood of Port Hueneme and, while vehicle traffic has been down due to the slumping economy, produce has held its own in a difficult marketplace according to Pete Wallace, Deputy Executive Director, Maritime Services, for the port. Located on California’s Central Coast and designated a Foreign Trade Zone the port’s tenants trade primarily with Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Germany, Sweden, Japan and Korea with much of the trade being bananas and other fresh produce. In fiscal year 2008 – 2009, the port imported 670,000 tons of fruit and exported roughly 10,000 tons. This compared to 695,000 tons of fruit imports and 5,000 tons exported the previous fiscal year. The port’s two largest tenants distributing fresh fruit are Chiquita Brands International and Del Monte Foods. Wallace told AJOT that a previous tenant Pacific Fruit Processors left the port last year, however a significant amount of the traffic generated by the company remained at the port following the departure. “Even with them leaving we are holding steady with the volumes,” he said. “Del Monte will be starting their melon season pretty soon,” Wallace said, “and it’s supposed to be a very good melon season for them. There is also a significant amount of pineapples coming in for both Del Monte and Chiquita.”
Oppenheimer
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