Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Bananas reached early-twentieth-century consumers via a commod-
ity chain that included shippers, brokers, jobbers, and retailers. In 1900,
United Fruit executives established the Fruit Dispatch Company, a sub-
sidiary responsible for the distribution of bananas in the United States
and Canada. Fruit Dispatch established o
ces in key ports and railroad
centers including Boston, Chicago, Kansas City, New Orleans, New York,
Pittsburgh, and Richmond. By 1925, the company had representatives in
more than fifty North American cities. Fruit Dispatch employees trav-
eled with rail shipments of bananas both to ensure proper storage con-
ditions and to line up sales of ''rollers,'' or railcars of fruit that had not
been presold, to brokers and wholesalers along the route. The company
also issued numerous pamphlets directed at retailers that provided in-
structions on how to handle and display bananas. By the late 1920s, Fruit
Dispatchhandlednearly53percentofthetotalU.S.bananatrade,farmore
than its leading competitors, Standard Fruit (15 percent) and Cuyamel
Fruit's subsidiary Banana Sales (13 percent). Combined, these three com-
panies accounted for some 81 percent of the banana trade. At the regional
level, single companies often held virtual monopolies. For example, Fruit
Dispatch was the only importer servicing the Boston area (United Fruit's
headquarters) and the company reportedly controlled 80 percent of the
lucrative eastern market (including New York City).
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In 1925, the Fruit Dispatch Company convened a conference in Chi-
cago that brought together employees from all phases of production and
marketing, including some managers from United Fruit's Central Ameri-
can divisions. High on the agenda was the question of how to market
an increased supply of bananas that was catching up with rising demand
following the Great War.
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The conference included both presentations
by company executives and reports from regional fruit jobbers assess-
ing the level of competition and the market's ability to expand. United
Fruitexecutivesusedtheoccasiontoannouncethecreationofa''Publicity
Department'' that would be responsible for making the banana ''more
popular than it has been in the past.''
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The company launched a multi-
media advertising campaign that included booklets containing informa-
tion about the banana's nutritional value and recipes, a magazine called
Unifruitco, and national billboard displays. The department's leadership
pledged to find newoutlets for the fruit by working with retailers in order
to ''feature'' bananas prominently in store displays.
The conference's emphasis on finding new outlets for bananas re-
flectedthedisjuncturebetweenagroecologicalprocessesinthetropicsand
mass-market dynamics: the local/regional effects of Panama disease were
