Front Page || Main Index || Corpus Christi News || Business || Texas || Sports || Entertainment || Selena
Wednesday, Jul. 8, 1998
Port plans refrigerated warehouse facility
$8 million project will expand ability to handle fruits, meats, vegetables
By GLASTON FORD
Staff WriterThe Port of Corpus Christi Authority will build an $8 million refrigerated warehouse to import and export fruits, vegetables, meats and other refrigerated commodities.
That means grapes from Chile, bananas from Ecuador and apples from South Africa could soon make their way through the Port of Corpus Christi en route to grocery stores in the United States, port officials said.
The port will pay for the warehouse out of its $18 million reserve fund, said John LaRue, executive director of the port. Construction should begin early next year and be complete by fall 1999, he said.
Chicago-based Berkshire Foods Inc. will run the 100,000-square-foot facility, port officials said. Berkshire and the port will jointly market the warehouse, said Jake Jacobi, deputy director of the port of Corpus Christi.
The warehouse will be built at Cargo Dock 10, on the north side of the ship channel near the Harbor Bridge. Two seldom-used warehouses will be torn down to make room for the cold-storage facility, Jacobi said.
It will have three or four separate storage compartments, each capable of storing products as cold as 20 degrees below zero, said Ted Grzywacz, president of Berkshire Foods Inc. It will cost about $2 million a year to operate.
One of the first targets of the port's marketing efforts will be citrus growers in the Rio Grande Valley, Jacobi said. About 90 percent of that fruit goes to Europe and travels now through Brownsville and Houston, he said.
In January 1997, the port handled a shipment of grapefruit and grapefruit juice from the Valley bound for the Netherlands. Since the port did not have a refrigerated warehouse, it had to transfer the products directly from refrigerated trucks to the refrigerated ship, a move that required careful timing, Jacobi said.
A cold-storage facility, which allows products to be unloaded and stored, is a more effective operation, he said.
Fruits, poultry and pork will be the three largest import/export commodities out of the facility, Grzywacz said.
Berkshire operates five public cold-storage facilities - four in Chicago and one in Savannah, Ga.
Berkshire also will pursue ``domestic cold-storage business to level out the peaks and valleys of the import/export business,'' Grzywacz said.
The warehouse will provide jobs for 25 people and additional work for longshoremen, who load and unload dry cargo from ships, Jacobi said.
The workload for local longshoremen has declined in the past few years, said Mark Polinard, business agent for Local 26 of the International Longshoreman's Association.
Ten years ago there was enough work to keep about 150 longshoremen busy, he said. Now there is usually only enough work for 30 to 40 per day, he said.
Many longshoremen have resorted to doing occasional jobs at other ports, he said.
The refrigerated facility, with its labor-intensive food products, should help reverse that trend, he said.
One of the chief advantages of the port's proposed warehouse is its proximity to the dock, Grzywacz said. Shippers will be able to unload temperature-sensitive fruit from the ship and put it in cold storage in minutes, he said. Most port cold-storage warehouses are located blocks or miles from the waterfront.
Corpus Christi could also be an alternative route for produce from the western United States and Southern California bound for Europe, Jacobi said.
The project, the culmination of 3 and a half years of work, is another effort of the port to diversify its cargo beyond its traditional petrochemical base. Other efforts include the multipurpose cruise terminal and waterfront development and the port's designation last year as a strategic seaport for military deployments.
The port commission approved the project at a special meeting/workshop in June.Post your comments about local news eventsFront Page || Main Index || News || Business || Texas || South Texas Outdoors || Birdwatching || Sports || Entertainment || Selena || Education || South Texas Attractions || World Wide Web