First, it was bananas. In February, Port Tampa Bay celebrated the arrival of the first bunches to be unloaded on its docks in more than 20 years.
Now the Port Logistics Refrigerated Services warehouse at the port has received its first shipment of pineapples. They arrived Saturday aboard the M/V Juice Express, a combination juice tanker and container ship, from Chestnut Hill Farms in Costa Rica. They are headed to grocery stores in the Tampa Bay area and beyond.
"This new routing provides us with excellent access to serve our customers in Florida and throughout the southeastern United States," Chestnut Farms president Raul Romero said in a statement released through the port. "We expect this will be the first of regular, ongoing shipments."
According to tampabay.com¸the warehouse is preparing to receive 20 to 30 shipping containers of pineapples every other week, Port Logistics chief operating officer Rick Sharp said Tuesday in an interview from Buenos Aires, where he was talking with lemon juice exporters about shipping to Coca-Cola through Tampa.
