Dive Brief:
- Chiquita Brands International has signed a lease renewal that will keep the shipper at the Port of Wilmington, DE for the next five years. Options in the lease include other renewals, which would allow Chiquita to stay through 2029.
- The lease renewal is good news for the mid-Atlantic port, which has faced growing competition from the nearby Port of Paulsboro, NJ.
- Combined with a similar renewal in December with Dole, the renewal means that Wilmington remains the top banana-handling port in the country.
Dive Insight:
They must be breathing a sigh of relief today in Wilmington. As the port sought to negotiate a lease extension with Chiquita, the banana company ended a 40-year deal with Mississippi's Port of Gulfport and moved operations to New Orleans, showing it was willing to change ports if it didn't get a deal it liked.
And no doubt the folks at Paulsboro lobbied hard to convince Chiquita to leave Wilmington. Paulsboro has poured a lot of cash into efforts to become a much bigger player, and as Chiquita was announcing its decision, Paulsboro was announcing it had signed a deal with Holt Logistics to build a 190 acre terminal.