Last week, French producer and importer Canavese, owner of the Kini brand of bananas grown in Côte d’Ivoire, revealed that it was returning to the port of Marseille for its supply of bananas to the southeast of France.
The company switched from Marseille to Antwerp back in the 2000s in order to supply its ripening facilities in Marseille, Aubagne and Valence.
“Using ports in the north was illogical both economically and environmentally, but following big problems concerning reliability, we had no choice,” said Christian Métadier, Canavese’s managing director. “All that is behind us now.”
The company’s return signals increasing confidence in the port’s reliability and quality of service in its handling of perishable items.
It also highlights the desire of shipping company CMA CGM to attract new volumes to Marseille from rapidly developing countries in Africa.
Canavese’s bananas will reportedly arrive each Tuesday via a line through Tangier, in Morocco, and Ghazaouet, in Algeria. “This creates a connection that was strangely missing between Marseille and West Africa,” said Ludovic Rozan, CMA CGM’s director for Africa.
In 2014, the port of Marseille Fos handled 547,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables, a rise of 6.5 per cent from 2013. Canavese markets around 100,000 tonnes of bananas a year under its Kini brand.
