Gaylords in Wilmington and the port

The Port of Wilmington sits on the Christina River near its meeting with the Delaware. It handles more bananas than any other North American port, along with other fruit, cars and cargo, and it has large cold storage. Behind the port are food distributors; in the downtown and the surrounding suburbs are the headquarters and laboratories of chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

The port's boxes come with fruit and the cold chain; the laboratory boxes come clean and small. Both end up as empties and both want a plan. A fruit handler's stack is damp and often discolored; a laboratory's is dry but small. We grade each on its own.

The Port of Wilmington is the largest seaport for bananas in North America and handled nearly 1.5 million tons of bananas and plantains in 2018 (Supply Chain Dive). That figure is cited for geography and for scale.

Our research lists fresh fruit import, cold storage, chemical companies' headquarters and laboratories, and food distribution for the city.

This page covers 19801, 19802, 19805, 19806, 19809 and 19803. The industries to expect there, from our market research: fresh fruit import, cold storage, chemical company headquarters and laboratories and food distribution.

Banana and fruit ships arrive weekly. Chemical and laboratory work follows the corporate calendar.

• Buy. Importers and distributors needing bulk boxes for non-contact uses.
• Sell. Port tenants and labs with sound empties.
• Recycle. Damp fruit boxes, flattened.

For fruit boxes, tell us the storage and the dates. Cold rooms are hard on board.

• Plantain. A starchy banana-like fruit cooked before eating, shipped through the port beside bananas.
• Cold chain. A series of refrigerated links keeping perishables cool from farm to shelf.
• Christina River. The tidal stream on which the port stands, flowing into the Delaware.

• Which fruit or goods the boxes carried.
• Whether they came from cold or dry space.
• The count, footprint and grade.
• Dock hours.