Chiquita’s dedicated reefer service gets underway

Chiquita Brands International, has announced that the first vessel in its service linking Central America to Europe’s Vlissingen port in Netherlands has sailed. The service will be operated with five fully cellular container vessels, and serve all Northern European destinations for Chiquita. It is part of a major service reorganisation announced by Chiquita last year, which sees container ships replacing conventional reefer vessels for Chiquta’s Northern European business. Stevedoring at Vlissingen is provided by Kloosterboer.

Chiquita said the new vessels “have also helped to reduce the handling of fruit at ports and increased stowage capacity by 12.5%, thanks to a more efficient storage from origin to destination, guaranteeing the cold chain. These improvements will mean more bananas can be moved per trip, using less energy whilst still ensuring the fruit quality is prioritised.”

With regard to reefer containers, Chiquita recently purchased 2,500 new units from Maersk Container Industry (MCI), out of which 1,000 were equipped with MCI’s controlled atmosphere (CA) system. CA is not needed for Chiquita’s shorter routes from Central to North America, but on the longer routes to European markets it extends the transportation window to 45 days by controlling ripening.

"Looking back over these past years work with the container fleet upgrade, we can proudly say we have achieved something remarkable" said Carlos Lopez Flores, President of Chiquita. "We’ve saved an unprecedented amount of energy – the equivalent of the CO2 emitted by 3,000 cars per year.”