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Production Overview

CORPORATE RESTRUCTURING

A return to profitability in the 1960s made United Fruit an attractive takeover target. In 1969 they were bought out by a private American company to become United Brands with its major banana operations in Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama. Since the 1990s, the company has been called Chiquita Brands International.
In 1964, Standard Fruit was absorbed by Castle & Cookee, a Hawaiian fruit-growing, shipping and real estate company now owned by Dole Food Company of California which sells more than 100 kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables, packaged foods, fruit juices and nuts to global markets. Its major Central American banana operations are in Honduras and Costa Rica. Since the mid 1970s, Dole's Castle & Cookee division has been the largest importer of bananas into the USA.
In 1979, Del Monte was bought by R.J. Reynolds tobacco company of the United States which was investing heavily to diversify away from its dependence on cigarette production. Del Monte's major Central American operations are in Guatemala and Costa Rica. In 1985, Reynolds merged with a giant biscuit-maker and general foods TNC called Nabisco and in 1988, during a frantic period of restructuring in the global food industry, RJR Nabisco was taken over by a New York-based finance company for $US 25 billion, the largest corporate takeover in history. During the 1990s, Del Monte's fresh fruit and vegetable operations were sold to a new group, Fares Del Monte Produce Inc., based in the USA, but ultimately controlled in the United Arab Emirates. Hence, the banana enterprises have become absorbed into major corporate food giants.