As of next Monday Chiquita will no longer unload bananas at Belgium New Fruit Wharf (BFNW) in Antwerp, but will instead unload at Kloosterboer in Vlissengen. This was confirmed by Franklin Ginus, Director of Chiquita Benelux. According to Franklin this decision is a direct result of the take-over by the Brazilian juice giant Cutrale-Safra. Chiquita have been unloading bananas at Antwerp for 33 years.
First load this morning in Vlissingen (7th of January)
Chiquita is currently the only company who has chosen Vlissingen. According to Franklin there are various advantages involved in the change. "By changing ports and shortening the distance we can unload as much as four days faster. In addition, the handling of loads in Vlissingen will be faster. Through more accurate arrivals we can add more value to the chain."
"In addition Kloosterboer has made an offer which our new owner could not turn down. Due to this it all went pretty fast and in a fairly short period of time the choice fell upon Vlissingen," continues Franklin. "Not only the price played a role, but also the sustainable management of Kloosterboer, where the energy for the warehouse facilities is generated by wind turbines."
The port of Antwerp, which claims to be the largest transhipment port for bananas in the world, will lose about 20% of the annual throughput of bananas in one blow. Transhipment of fruit covers 1.7 million Euro annually, of which half is bananas. "Chiquita is fortunately one of our smaller banana customers," said Johan Claes of BNFW Wednesday in the Flemish business newspaper De Tijd. "The brand lost market share in recent years in Europe. But one ship per week, accounting for 170 million kg of bananas a year, we will naturally feel."
Antwerp port alderman Marc Van Peel indicates that the departure is not so much to do with the net turnover, but with things like the shifts system. "Once again there is a big player who is leaving us after more than 30 odd years in the harbour. Chiquita is tangible proof that they are leaving. We do not want to be just a container port, but also a cargo port, but it should be possible," said the port alderman.