Phila.-area ports are the East Coast fruit hub

The annual "winter" fruit is here.

Though the temperature outside is frigid, the air aboard the CSAV Ice Runner, a South American steamship from Chile, wafts up summer breezes and sunshine.

Succulent peaches, nectarines, plums, and cherries from South America are now arriving twice weekly at Tioga Marine Terminal in Port Richmond.

At 7 a.m. yesterday, the 12,400-ton Compañía SudAmericana de Vapores (CSAV) docked at Tioga, laden with 43 containers of fruit.

By 9 a.m., the containers were all off-loaded, and more than 100 stevedores went into the hatches to remove 2,500 pallets, each weighing about a ton, of grapes and other fruit.

After overnight fumigation in dockside warehouses, the fruit will be trucked today to grocers and produce markets across the country, including Acme, Giant, Safeway, and Wal-Mart.

The Chilean ship - the fourth to come to Tioga Terminal since Dec. 8 - is set to deliver an additional 2,800 fruit pallets today to Gloucester Terminals L.L.C. south of Camden before heading back to Chile. The trip is 4,300 miles and takes 10 days.

Fresh fruit accounts for about 25 percent of ship cargoes coming on the Delaware River to the ports of Philadelphia, South Jersey, Chester, and Wilmington. About 50 percent of the fruit arriving in Philadelphia is from Chile.

"We've been here in Tioga for 35 years now," said Andres Montecinos, U.S. representative for CSAV, Chile's largest fruit carrier, with 45 percent market share.

"This is the main distribution center for Chilean fruit for the East Coast," he said.

Two other major Chilean fruit shippers, Pacific Seaways and NYK Line, go to Wilmington and Gloucester, respectively.

At least 65 percent of all Chilean fruit to the United States comes through Philadelphia, Gloucester, and Wilmington. The remaining 35 percent goes through Los Angeles, Montecinos said.

Besides the winter fruit season, from early December through April, millions of bananas are shipped annually to the Port of Wilmington (Dole and Chiquita); Broadway Terminal in Camden (DelMonte); Pier 82 on Columbus Boulevard (Turbana Corp.); and Penn Terminals in Chester (Banacol). Bananas are a year-around fruit.

Why so much fruit here?

"We are centrally located to many major markets, with second-day truck delivery to two-thirds of U.S. consumers," said Robert C. Blackburn, senior deputy executive director of the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority.

Delaware River ports have extensive on-dock refrigerated warehouses and a network of inland cold-storage facilities accessible to shippers "that is unmatched in any other port," Blackburn said. In addition, longshoremen have the training and equipment to handle large quantities of perishable produce.

The fruit that comes here is distributed primarily east of the Mississippi River, but "it goes everywhere," said Pat Kryszczak, terminal manager at Tioga for the Delaware River Stevedores Inc. "I had a guy in here the other day picking up a load to go to Arizona."

"It goes to Chicago, to Detroit, everywhere," Montecinos said, "even Houston and Florida."

Leo Holt, whose family owns Holt Logistics Corp. and the Gloucester Terminals, said produce on the Delaware River comes from "all over the world." It begins with Spanish clementines in October, Chilean fruit in early December, followed by apples and pears from Argentina.

"As you go into the summer, a variety of other commodities kick in, like avocados, apples, and pears from Chile; asparagus; and, through the summer, clementines and other citrus products from South Africa," Holt said.

The region caters to an "extraordinary collection" of folks in the cold-storage business, in nearby Kennett Square, where temperature-controlled storage was traditionally geared to the mushroom industry, Holt said.

In Vineland, Hammonton, and Glassboro, companies have sprung up catering to tomato, peach, and blueberry growers that gave the Garden State its name, he said.

"This allows such a huge spike and surge of [fruit] product to come in during the winter months," Holt said. "It allows it to enter into the chain and to be distributed."

For a photo slideshow of the winter fruit cargo at the Tioga Marine Terminal, go to http://go.philly.com/winterfruitEndText