South Florida pilot program for fruit imports

Bite into an imported grape or blueberry in South Florida and you're probably eating a fruit that was shipped from South America all the way to the Philadelphia area before being trucked back down to your local supermarket. A business coalition wants to change that, so those imports can now come directly to South Florida seaports, saving time and money for importers and providing fresher produce to consumers.

New technologies now make it possible to safeguard against bringing those pests in Florida, the coalition argues. The pilot program will allow direct imports with tight controls: the grapes and blueberries must be shipped in containers, surrounded by insect-proof nets, and kept for about two weeks at near-freezing temperatures in a process called cold treatment.

To trim risks, the US Department of Agriculture wants shipping companies to monitor the containers' temperatures and submit records electronically to the ports before the shipments arrive. Few companies have the staff and computers to do that, because imports into Philadelphia are handled in a different way, participants at Tuesday's conference said.

Savings could be significant both for importers and consumers. Today, shipping blueberries by sea from Peru takes roughly 21 days to reach Philadelphia, up to four days to be inspected and another day or more to be trucked to South Florida, participants said.

Shipping directly to South Florida would shave off nearly six days at sea and the trucking time, saving likely $4,000 per container — which is approximately 10 percent of the current cost for delivery in South Florida, says Jose Antonio Gomez, who runs the Camposol Fresh USA office.

That might mean even bigger cuts in retail costs, since supermarkets likely would be able to sell more if the fruit were fresher and more attractive to consumers, said Gomez.

Source: sun-sentinel.com