The Chiquita company returned to New Orleans two years ago, but is again considering moving its cargo business elsewhere; a move that has New Orleans port officials scrambling to try to keep the company from leaving the city that was once the country’s top banana importer, reports theadvocate.com.
The departure of Chiquita Brands International, one of the world’s largest banana and fruit shippers, could cost upward of 350 jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of projected economic activity that were expected to flow through the local port over the next decade.
Port leaders and state officials were working to get a better handle on whether Chiquita is indeed planning to leave and, if so, whether it could be talked into changing its mind.
Still, the rumor had circulated “around the docks” that the North Carolina-based company is on its way out, port President and CEO Gary LaGrange said. When he first heard the news, he said, he felt “dismayed.”
Though word spread widely among maritime officials and local business leaders, many declined comment, saying they were still trying to assess whether the rumored departure is a done deal.
In a statement Thursday 12th May, the Port of New Orleans said its board “is aware of Chiquita’s potential interest in pursuing other strategic shipping options” but had received no official notice from the company.
Louisiana Economic Development also has received no official notification that Chiquita will leave the New Orleans market, department Secretary Don Pierson said.
A Chiquita spokesman did not respond to a message seeking comment.
LaGrange said he received word late Wednesday night — he wouldn’t say from whom — that Chiquita could be leaving but that he had been unable to get any company officials on the phone.
Still, he said, he was taking seriously what would be a major blow after local officials spent nearly a decade working to recruit the business back to New Orleans, which it called home for more than seven decades before leaving for Gulfport, Mississippi, in the 1970s.
A 2014 LSU economic impact study forecast that the company’s return to New Orleans would result in about 270 to 350 new permanent jobs in the city and a total economic impact of $373 million to $485 million over 10 years.
Chiquita had planned to move about 60,000 to 78,000 20-foot-equivalent units — a measure of cargo capacity for containerized shipping — through the port each year, representing almost a 15 percent boost in total container volume.
The port already has seen Chiquita’s impact to its bottom line: It handled a record amount of container cargo in the year ending in September — more than a half-million 20-foot containers, up more than 13 percent from the year earlier.
In 2015, nearly 244,700 tons of bananas were shipped through the port, representing 2.5 percent of its total general cargo tonnage, the port said.
While he awaits official word on Chiquita’s plans, LaGrange plans “to do everything we can to continue laying out the red carpet and to try to do everything we can — short of breaking our back bending over backwards — to keep them here.”
Asked about the impact of the company’s departure, LaGrange said the port likely would miss its cargo projections for the next few years.
“There are others out there that could fill that gap,” he said, “but to say that they would do it, I’d rather bet on a bird in the hand.”
