N.B. eyes produce trade with Mexican port city

Unless you grew it yourself, the lime in your summer margarita likely came from Mexico and was trucked across the U.S. border, passing between several brokers and shippers, before making its way up Interstate 95 to the supermarket.
Based on the retail prices New England consumers pay for those limes, and a wide array of other imported fruits and vegetables, Mexican growers and government officials think there must be a more efficient way to move produce to the Northeast.
So they reached out to the Port of New Bedford, which last week formalized a sister-city agreement with Tuxpan, a port in the Mexican state of Veracruz, that officials and businesses on both sides of the border hope will start a flourishing maritime produce trade into the Whaling City.
The agreement, which government and industry leaders have been working on for more than a year, will result in a coordinated effort to bring together Mexican produce growers and Northeastern distributors around the idea of moving produce by sea instead of highway.
If successful, proponents say it could reduce produce prices in the region while boosting cargo activity in New Bedford and creating new waterfront jobs.
“Produce prices in New England and eastern Canada are higher than the rest of the United States and we think opening up this new route will decrease the cost of produce in the region while increasing the margins of retailers and growers,” said Fabian Santana, a trade-development official with Mexican trade-commission ProMexico. “It will also take some trucks off the roads, which are very congested.”
In essence, the agreement looks to eliminate some of the middlemen that Santana said clutter the produce trade to the north and add to transportation costs that now represent between 10 and 20 percent of the cost of Mexican fruit here.
“Right now the distribution system has layers of brokers and we are not being able to determine the price of produce, because the current supply chain is very opaque,” Santana said. “We don’t even know the number of hands it is going through now.”
Located on Mexico’s central East Coast, Tuxpan is the closest large port to Mexico City and the government is currently working on a new highway between the coast and the capital that could expand commerce there further.
Years down the line, Santana thinks as much as half the produce exported to the Northeast could be shipped by sea. In its search for a Northeast port to ship produce to, ProMexico turned to New Bedford because of the city’s lack of congestion, low prices and abundance of cold-storage capacity connected to the fishing industry.
New Bedford has already proven its capacity to handle imported fruit in the form of Moroccan clementines – 13 vessels this winter – bound for the New England and eastern Canadian markets.
Like the clementine shipments, produce from Mexico would come to New Bedford in 300- to 500-foot-long, refrigerated break-bulk cargo carriers.
The produce on these ships, 200 truckloads each, comes on pallets and offloading then requires about 50 longshoremen, said acting New Bedford Port Director Ed Anthes-Washburn. That means establishment of a regular service from Mexico could mean at least 75 new jobs directly at the port, he said.
Anthes-Washburn said having a steady stream of Mexican produce landing at the state pier could encourage regional food distributors to locate in and around New Bedford.
The Mexican trade will not require the use of the marine-commerce terminal Massachusetts plans to build further south in the harbor, but Anthes-Washburn said it could add opportunities for shipping at the terminal later on.
“This is something we can do with existing resources and once we build the maritime-commerce terminal we can handle more capacity and more diverse cargo,” Anthes Washburn said.
With the sister-city agreement in place, the next major step in developing a maritime produce trade is a scheduled mission by Mexican growers to Massachusetts in the fall to meet with members of the New England Produce Council trade group.
When produce shipments do start coming to New Bedford, they will be stored at facilities owned by Maritime International Inc., which has been at the center of putting the agreement together.
Maritime International President Pierre Bernier projects the Mexican-produce shipments to New Bedford could easily reach 50,000 tons a year in both fresh and frozen products.
“New Bedford has the advantages of facilities, location and experienced workforce,” Bernier said. “It is also an easier port to come into and sell from than the larger ports where you have to deal with congestion.” •