Chiquita Brands International
Encyclopedia
Chiquita Brands International Inc. is an American producer and distributor of banana
Banana
Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....

s and other produce
Produce
Produce is a generalized term for a group of farm-produced goods and, not limited to fruits and vegetables . More specifically, the term "produce" often implies that the products are fresh and generally in the same state as where they were harvested. In supermarkets the term is also used to refer...

, under a variety of subsidiary
Subsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...

 brand names, collectively known as Chiquita. Other brands include Fresh Express salads, which it purchased from Performance Food Group
Performance Food Group
Performance Food Group Company is a company that was founded in 1875. Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, United States, the company distributes a range of food products....

 in 2005. Its current headquarters is located in Downtown
Downtown Cincinnati
Downtown Cincinnati is the central business district of Cincinnati, Ohio, and one of its 52 neighborhoods.-Geography:Downtown Cincinnati's streets are arranged in a grid configuration. It is bisected by Vine Street....

 Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

, but will relocate to Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...

 in 2012. Chiquita is the successor to the United Fruit Company
United Fruit Company
It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...

 and is the leading distributor of bananas in the United States. The company also owns a German produce distribution company, Atlanta AG, which it acquired in 2003. Chiquita was formerly controlled by Cincinnati businessman Carl H. Lindner, Jr.
Carl Lindner, Jr.
Carl Henry Lindner, Jr. was a Cincinnati businessman and one of the world's richest people. According to the 2006 issue of Forbes Magazine's 400 list, Lindner was ranked 133 and was worth an estimated $2.3 billion...

, whose majority ownership of the company ended as a result of Chiquita Brands International exiting a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 19, 2002. The enterprise changed its name to Chiquita Brands and operates with that name to this day.

Chiquita Banana

The trademark logo mascot, Chiquita Banana, was created by Dik Browne, who is best known for his Hägar the Horrible
Hägar the Horrible
Hägar the Horrible is the title and main character of an American comic strip created by cartoonist Dik Browne , and syndicated by King Features Syndicate. It first appeared in February 1973, and was an immediate success. Since Browne's retirement in 1988 , his son Chris Browne has continued the...

 comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

. 1940s vocalist Patti Clayton
Arthur Godfrey
Arthur Morton Godfrey was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer who was sometimes introduced by his nickname, The Old Redhead...

 was the original 1944 voice of Chiquita Banana, followed by Elsa Miranda, June Valli
June Valli
June Valli , the stage name of June Foglia, was an American singer and television personality.Born in the Bronx, Valli was one of the stars of the 1950s television shows Stop the Music and Your Hit Parade. She sang on the show during the show's 1952–1953 season...

 and Monica Lewis. Advertisements featured the banana character wearing a fruit hat
Fruit hat
A fruit hat is a festive and colorful hat type popularized by Carmen Miranda and associated with warm locales. This type of hat has been worn by fashionistas, in films, by comic strip characters, and for Halloween.-History:...

. The banana was changed into a woman in 1987.

History

Chiquita Brands International Inc. is the final name in a long list of companies whose ultimate origin was the United Fruit Company
United Fruit Company
It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...

, formed in 1899 by the merging of the Boston Fruit Company
Boston Fruit Company
The Boston Fruit Company was a fruit production and import business based in the port of Boston, Massachusetts. Andrew W. Preston and nine others established the firm to ship bananas and other fruit from the West Indes to north-eastern America. At the time, the banana was "considered a rare and...

 and various fruit exporting concerns controlled by Minor C. Keith
Minor C. Keith
Minor Cooper Keith was a U.S. railroad, fruit, and shipping magnate whose business activities had a profound impact in Central America and in Colombia.- Early life :...

. In 1970 it became the United Brands Company when it was purchased by Eli Black. He outbid two other conglomerates, Zapata Corporation
Zapata Corporation
Zapata Corporation is a holding company based in Rochester, New York, and originating from an oil company started by a group including the former United States president George H. W. Bush. Various writers have alleged links between the company and the United States Central Intelligence Agency...

 and Textron
Textron
Textron is a conglomerate that includes Bell Helicopter, E-Z-GO, Cessna Aircraft Company, and Greenlee, among others. It was founded by Royal Little in 1923 as the Special Yarns Company, and is headquartered at the Textron Tower in Providence, Rhode Island, United States.With total revenues of...

, for a controlling interest in the company. In fact, that is a condensed version of what has actually happened to United Fruit Co., famed in the U.S. for Chiquita bananas, but known to generations of Latin Americans as "el Pulpo" (the Octopus). In 1985 the company became Chiquita Brands International.

On November 29, 2011, the North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 Economic Investment Committee approved $22 million in incentives for Chiquita to move its headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...

. The same day, Chiquita officially announced the headquarters move. The company cited the growing airport as another reason for the move. Chiquita will take several floors in the NASCAR Plaza tower
NASCAR Hall of Fame
The NASCAR Hall of Fame honors drivers who have shown exceptional skill at NASCAR driving, all-time great crew chiefs and owners, and other major contributors to competition within the sanctioning body. NASCAR committed itself to building a Hall of Fame and on March 6, 2006, the city of Charlotte,...

. Research and development will also move to the Charlotte area.

The Cincinnati Enquirer controversy

On May 3, 1998, The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Cincinnati Enquirer, a daily morning newspaper, is the highest-circulation print publication in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a daily morning newspaper, is the highest-circulation print publication in Greater Cincinnati (Ohio) and Northern Kentucky. The...

 published an eighteen-page section, "Chiquita Secrets Revealed" by Enquirer investigative reporters Michael Gallagher
Michael Gallagher (journalist)
Michael Gallagher was an investigative journalist for Gannett News Service. He joined the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1995, and reported and wrote an award-winning series the next year about problems with the cleanup of a uranium-processing plant....

 and Cameron McWhirter. The articles accused the company of mistreating the workers on its Central American plantations, polluting the environment, allowing cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

 to be brought to the United States on its ships, bribing foreign officials, evading foreign nations' laws on land ownership, forcibly preventing its workers from unionizing, and a host of other misdeeds.

Chiquita denied all the allegations, and sued after it was revealed that Gallagher had repeatedly hacked into Chiquita's voice-mail system. (No evidence ever indicated that McWhirter was aware of Gallagher's crime or a participant.) A special prosecutor was appointed to investigate, because the elected prosecutor at the time had ties to Carl Lindner, Jr.
Carl Lindner, Jr.
Carl Henry Lindner, Jr. was a Cincinnati businessman and one of the world's richest people. According to the 2006 issue of Forbes Magazine's 400 list, Lindner was ranked 133 and was worth an estimated $2.3 billion...

 On June 28, 1998, the Enquirer retracted the entire series of stories, published a front-page apology, and paid the company a multi-million-dollar
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

 settlement. The Columbia Journalism Review reported both $14 million and $50 million for the amount. Chiquita's Annual Report mentions 'a cash settlement in excess of $10 million'. One of the reporters, Gallagher, was fired and prosecuted and the paper's editor, Lawrence K. Beaupre, was transferred to the Gannett's headquarters amid allegations that he ignored the paper's usual procedures on fact-checking in order to win a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

.

Chiquita and Social Action Groups

In 1998, a coalition of social activist groups, led by EUROBAN (European Banana Action Network), itself a coalition of labor and environmental groups, chose to target the banana industry in general and Chiquita in particular to create a new climate of corporate social responsibility. Their strategy was to encourage small farming of bananas
History of peasant banana production in the Americas
While the production of bananas for export is largely in the hands of large commercial companies, such as Chiquita or Dole, the Caribbean, and particularly the Windward Islands, are notable for the production of bananas by small holders for export. They focus their attention on the popular...

 rather than large scale monoculture
History of modern banana plantations in the Americas
Although bananas have been planted for thousands of years, the development of an intercontinental trade in bananas had to wait for the convergence of three things: modern rapid shipping , refrigeration, and railroads...

, and to push for subsidies and other government relief to level the field for small producers. The Fair Trade
Fair trade
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...

 movement, which sought to influence consumers to purchase the products of smallholders also joined in the action. As a result of this pressure, changes in corporate management, and new patterns of global competition, according to J. Gary Taylor and Patricia Scharlin, Chiquita partnered with the Rainforest Alliance
Rainforest Alliance
The Rainforest Alliance is a non-governmental organization with the published aims of working to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. It is based in New York City, and has offices throughout the...

, an environmental group dedicated to preserving the rainforest, and made major reforms in the way they plant and protect their bananas, especially in the use of pesticides, but also to some extent in other aspects of the corporate culture.

Payments to paramilitary groups

On March 14, 2007, Chiquita Brands was fined $25 million as part of a settlement with the United States Justice Department for having ties to Colombian paramilitary
Paramilitarism in Colombia
Paramilitarism in Colombia refers to the origins and activities of far right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia during the 20th century.Right-wing paramilitary groups are the parties considered to be most responsible for human rights violations in Colombia during the later half of the current...

 groups. According to court documents, between 1997 and 2004, officers of a Chiquita subsidiary paid approximately $1.7 million to the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia was created as an umbrella organization of regional far-right...

 (AUC), in exchange for local, employee protection in Colombia's volatile banana harvesting zone. Similar payments were also made to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army is a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization based in Colombia which is involved in the ongoing Colombian armed conflict, currently involved in drug dealing and crimes against the civilians..FARC-EP is a peasant army which...

 (FARC), as well as the National Liberation Army
National Liberation Army (Colombia)
National Liberation Army is a revolutionary, avowed Marxist guerrilla group that has been operating in several regions of Colombia since 1964....

 (ELN) from 1989 to 1997, both left-wing organizations. All three of these groups are on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Chiquita currently faces serious charges in a lawsuit issued in June 2007. According to the attorney of 173 family members of victims of the AUC militia this could be the biggest terrorist case in history and may put Chiquita out of business. Terry Collingsworth, a lawyer with International Rights Advocates who is involved with the multi-million dollar litigation, said: "This is a landmark case, maybe the biggest terrorism case in history. In terms of casualties, it's the size of three World Trade Center attacks."

Despite reaching a deal with US prosecutors, Chiquita Brands International still may have to face criminal charges in Colombia, which could even include the extradition of some of its current and former board members. Specifically, on December 7, 2007, "the 29th Specialized District Attorney's Office in Medellín called the board members of Chiquita […] to make statements concerning charges for conspiracy to commit an aggravated crime and financing illegal armed groups. The court order mentions Robert Fisher, Steven G. Wars, Carl H. Linder, Durk Jaguer, Jeffrey Benjamin, Morten Amtzen, Roderick Hills (former committee director of Chiquita), Cyrus F. Freidheim (former general director and most recently president and CEO of a large media group), and Robert Olson, former legal counsel. The nine of them, according to the initial data obtained by the Attorney General's Office, knew of the illegal operation through which 1.7 million dollars were transferred to the AUC, a charge to which Chiquita has already admitted and for which the US justice system fined it 25 million dollars."

Alleged continuing workers' rights violations

In May 2007, the French non-governmental organization
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

 (NGO) "Peuples Solidaires" publicly accused the Compañia Bananera Atlántica Limitada (COBAL), a Chiquita subsidiary, of knowingly violating what the NGO describes as "its workers' basic rights" and endangering their families' health and their own. Allegedly, the banana firm has carelessly exposed labourers at the Coyol plantation in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

 to highly toxic pesticides on multiple occasions. Additionally, the human rights group accuses the company of using a private militia to intimidate workers. Finally, Peuples Solidaires claims that Chiquita, despite a regional agreement between the company and local unions requiring prompt investigation of grievances, has ignored certain union complaints for more than a year.

Human rights violations in literature

Several authors have denounced human rights violations committed by the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita). The most important ones are One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...

 by Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...

, Green Pope by Miguel Ángel Asturias
Miguel Ángel Asturias
Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales was a Nobel Prize–winning Guatemalan poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and diplomat...

, La Casa Grande by Alvaro Cepeda Samudio
Álvaro Cepeda Samudio
Álvaro Cepeda Samudio was a Colombian journalist, novelist, short story writer, and filmmaker. Within Colombia and the rest of Latin America, he is known in his own right as an important and innovative writer and journalist, largely inspiring much of the artistically-, intellectually- and...

, and the poem United Fruit Company by Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....

, included in his epic work Canto General
Canto General
Canto General is Pablo Neruda's tenth book of poems. It was first published in Mexico in 1950, by Talleres Gráficos de la Nación. Neruda began to compose it in 1938....

. Garcia Marquez, Asturias, and Neruda were awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature. According to some studies, the work Nostromo
Nostromo
Nostromo is a 1904 novel by Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana." It was originally published serially in two volumes of T.P.'s Weekly....

 by Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...

 was also inspired by the United Fruit Company
United Fruit Company
It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...

. Another author in Costa Rica, Carlos Luis Fallas, wrote Mamita Yunai (Yunai is a deformation of the word "united").

The movie "Life & Debt" describes a modern instance of the company, or it's sub-managers, killing strikers.

See also

  • Grand Nain
  • Paramilitarism in Colombia
    Paramilitarism in Colombia
    Paramilitarism in Colombia refers to the origins and activities of far right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia during the 20th century.Right-wing paramilitary groups are the parties considered to be most responsible for human rights violations in Colombia during the later half of the current...

  • Union of Banana Exporting Countries
    Union of Banana Exporting Countries
    The Union of Banana Exporting Countries was a Central/South American cartel inspired by OPEC. In 1974 Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama joined together in an attempt to form a banana growers' cartel in respect of exports to the North American market. The...

  • United Fruit Company
    United Fruit Company
    It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...


Further reading

  • Mike Gallagher & Cameron McWhirter, "Chiquita Secrets Revealed," Cincinnati Enquirer, May 3, 1998.
  • "The Business and Human Rights Management Report—Chiquita Brands International", Ethical Corporate Magazine, Nov. 2004.

}}
  • "The Importance of Corporate Responsibility", Economist Intelligence Unit, January 2005.
  • "Chiquita Brands: A Turnaround That Is Here to Stay", Winslow Environmental News, January 2004.
  • "The banana giant that found its gentle side", 'Financial Times
    Financial Times
    The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

    , December 2002
  • '"Chiquita Wins Raves for Outstanding Sustainability Reporting", Greenbiz.com, April 3, 2003

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK