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New service establishes ship route to Mexico

When the SeaLand Atlantico cargo ship arrived at the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia before dawn Thursday, it was the first time that fresh produce, meat, beer, and electronics traveled directly from the Gulf of Mexico to Philadelphia on an ocean route.

James Goldman (left), a U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspector, and Wayne Morris, from Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, inspect avocados from Mexico. Thursday was the first time that fresh produce from the Gulf of Mexico arrived in Philadelphia on a direct ocean route.
James Goldman (left), a U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspector, and Wayne Morris, from Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, inspect avocados from Mexico. Thursday was the first time that fresh produce from the Gulf of Mexico arrived in Philadelphia on a direct ocean route.Read moreALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer

When the SeaLand Atlantico cargo ship arrived at the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia before dawn Thursday, it was the first time that fresh produce, meat, beer, and electronics traveled directly from the Gulf of Mexico to Philadelphia on an ocean route.

Until now, the historic mode for getting limes, avocados, tomatoes, onions, and peppers from the Mexican ports of Veracruz and Altamira to the East Coast has been by truck - through long lines at border crossings and across congested highways.

"How we went about getting this new service was really a team effort," said Tom Holt Jr., who runs the terminal.

More than two years ago, a group of business owners with a stake in the Philadelphia port, called Ship Philly First, began working with the consul of Mexico in Philadelphia, representatives of the Mexican government, terminal operator Holt Logistics Corp., and the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority to try to convince importers and exporters and a steamship company that sending commodities by ship was a good idea.

SeaLand, the intra-Americas regional carrier of the Maersk Group, agreed to create the water route as an alternative to moving cargo thousands of miles via tractor-trailer.

"The Port of Philadelphia has a long history in handling refrigerated cargo," with an experienced labor force, warehouses, and truckers who specialize in handling perishable goods, said Craig Mygatt, SeaLand CEO. "There's a lot of confidence by the supermarkets and big-box retailers in how Philadelphia will handle the cargo."

Philadelphia is within a day's drive of 40 percent of the U.S. population, he said. The imports will go from here by truck and rail as far north as Canada and possibly to Ohio and Chicago, but "a lot will stay local" in the region, Mygatt said.

Carlos Giralt Cabrales, the consul of Mexico in Philadelphia, came up with the idea of a marine route at lunch several years ago with Fred Sorbello, former president of Ship Philly First. After many meetings and trips among Philadelphia, South Jersey, and Mexico, SeaLand "took the bold step to open this new service," Cabrales said.

"The idea is to open new routes and new opportunities for creating jobs here - and there," he said. "For me, it's very important that the ship will be fully loaded both ways, because that's the idea, to increase commerce and trade between this region and Mexico."

Holt said that once the weekly service is up and running, "we anticipate over 100 people working."

Mexico exports about $3.4 billion worth of goods a year to Pennsylvania, including manufacturing, automotive, and aerospace products. Pennsylvania exports more than $3.7 billion annually to Mexico, including chemicals, machinery, electronic goods, paper products, poultry, and wood.

"Today 20,000 to 30,000 trucks a day move across the Mexican border into the United States," Holt said. "We are trying to take trucks off the road here, eliminate a couple thousand miles of trucks on the road, and put the cargo on a ship."

The 2,100-mile, nonstop, six-day water route from Altamira to Philadelphia is "much more cost-effective" than transport by truck, is more environmentally friendly, and "burns a lot less fuel," Mygatt said. Shippers say the volume of cargo on ships typically makes for lower costs vs. trucks, based on economies of scale.

Commercial trucks, which can make extra stops, must change from Mexican to American drivers at the U.S.-Mexican border. "There's a security issue, and also a pilferage issue," Mygatt said. "If you have 100 boxes of electronic goods, you might end up with 90 when you finally get to the distribution points."

SeaLand is working with truckers "to offer to take business that they can't handle," he said. The new service doesn't aim to disrupt the truckers' work, but to "supplement" it.

These days, there are both tight truckload capacity and a driver shortage, Mygatt said. "A ship can bring 500 containers and a truck brings one container."

Containers are giant sealed metal boxes that can be loaded and unloaded on ships, trucks, and rail without the contents being unloaded at each point of transfer.

Ship Philly First president Lawrence Antonucci Jr., whose company 721 Logistics L.L.C. is a customs broker, urged port-related businesses to identify clients who ship to and from Mexico "and introduce them to this service."

"It's a more stable ride, with less bruising on the fruit," Antonucci said. "So you are packing more, and you are saving more. There's more fruit to sell, and it's of better quality when it gets here."

John Vena Inc., a family-owned produce business at the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market on Essington Avenue, ordered a container with 40,000 pounds of Mexican limes on the first ship.

"It's very exciting for a couple reasons," said Dan Vena, whose great-grandfather founded the company in 1919. "Sometimes it's a little cheaper to bring the product by ship. So hopefully, we can pass those savings along.

"It also saves on shelf life," he said. "We'll be getting the product about five days sooner than we would have by truck. Any time we can get a product in a shorter amount of time from the farm to the consumer, we think that's a win for everybody."

lloyd@phillynews.com

215-854-2831@LoydLinda