Fyffes plc is a fruit and fresh produce company headquartered at North Anne Street,
DublinDublin is the largest city and capital of Ireland. It is officially known in Irish as Baile Átha Cliath or Áth Cliath ; the English name comes from the Irish Dubh Linn meaning "black pool". It is located near the midpoint of Ireland's east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the...
7,
IrelandIreland is a country in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921. It is a parliamentary democracy and a republic...
.
Fyffes is one of the world's leading
brandA brand is a name or trademark connected with a product or producer. Brands have become increasingly important components of culture and the economy, now being described as "cultural accessories and personal philosophies".-Concepts:...
s of
bananaBanana is the common name for a herbaceous plants of the genus Musa, and the commonly eaten fruit it produces. They are native to the tropical region of Southeast Asia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. Today, they are cultivated throughout the tropics.Banana...
s, and the company also distributes the brands Geest (brand),
TurbanaTurbana is a brand of the Colombian banana export company Uniban. Turbana distributes bananas in the United States under its own name and also under the name Darien.- External links :* http://www.turbana.com/company_info/overview.htm...
, Coplaca, Cape, and Outspan.
In the 1870s Thomas Fyffe, a London food wholesaler, went into partnership with a fruit dealer named Hudson who had connections in the
Canary IslandsThe Canary Islands are a Spanish archipelago which, in turn, forms one of the Spanish Autonomous Communities and an Outermost Region of the European Union. The archipelago is located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the disputed border between Morocco and the...
.
Fyffes plc is a fruit and fresh produce company headquartered at North Anne Street,
DublinDublin is the largest city and capital of Ireland. It is officially known in Irish as Baile Átha Cliath or Áth Cliath ; the English name comes from the Irish Dubh Linn meaning "black pool". It is located near the midpoint of Ireland's east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the...
7,
IrelandIreland is a country in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921. It is a parliamentary democracy and a republic...
.
Fyffes is one of the world's leading
brandA brand is a name or trademark connected with a product or producer. Brands have become increasingly important components of culture and the economy, now being described as "cultural accessories and personal philosophies".-Concepts:...
s of
bananaBanana is the common name for a herbaceous plants of the genus Musa, and the commonly eaten fruit it produces. They are native to the tropical region of Southeast Asia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. Today, they are cultivated throughout the tropics.Banana...
s, and the company also distributes the brands Geest (brand),
TurbanaTurbana is a brand of the Colombian banana export company Uniban. Turbana distributes bananas in the United States under its own name and also under the name Darien.- External links :* http://www.turbana.com/company_info/overview.htm...
, Coplaca, Cape, and Outspan.
History
In the 1870s Thomas Fyffe, a London food wholesaler, went into partnership with a fruit dealer named Hudson who had connections in the
Canary IslandsThe Canary Islands are a Spanish archipelago which, in turn, forms one of the Spanish Autonomous Communities and an Outermost Region of the European Union. The archipelago is located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the disputed border between Morocco and the...
. In 1878 they shipped their first cargo of bananas to England. Within five years the business had become so successful that they purchased land in the Canaries to be cultivated as banana plantations. Meanwhile, Elder Dempster & Company (a large shipping firm which traded in the Canaries) had observed the success of Fyffe & Hudson and followed suit.
In 1898 Elder Dempster’s fruit importing business was extended to
JamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length and as much as in width, amounting to 11,100 km
2. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harboring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, which was then the second oldest of Britain’s overseas colonies. To protect the island’s economy the British Government agreed to pay a subsidy of £40,000 a year to Elder Dempster to run a regular steamer service to Jamaica and bring large quantities of bananas to the British market.
In May 1901 the firms merged and Elders & Fyffes Ltd was established in London. The following year 45% of the capital was purchased by the
United Fruit CompanyThe United Fruit Company was a United States corporation that traded in tropical fruit grown in Third World plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899 from the merger of Minor C. Keith's banana-trading concerns with Andrew W. Preston's Boston Fruit Company...
of America. Thereafter, the business went from strength to strength using specially constructed ships that ensured the fruit arrived in good condition after the long Atlantic crossing.
In 1960 At
Bembridge AirportBembridge Airport is located northeast of Sandown, Isle of Wight, England.Bembridge Aerodrome has a CAA Ordinary Licence that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction as authorised by the licensee .The airport is home to the aircraft manufacturer...
, Isle of Wight,
Britten-NormanBritten-Norman is a British aircraft manufacturer owned by members of the Zawawi family from the Sultanate of Oman, making it one of the UK's two remaining independent commercial aircraft producers, the other being Slingsby Aviation of Kirkbymoorside in Yorkshire.Britten-Norman has sold more than...
Ltd began trials of their new
CushioncraftCushioncraft Ltd was formed in 1960 as a division of Britten-Norman Ltd to develop/build hovercrafts. Originally based at Bembridge Airport on the Isle of Wight, Cushioncraft later moved to the Duver Works at St...
— their name for an air-cushion vehicle built for Elders and Fyffes. It was used to study the potential of this type of vehicle for the carriage of bananas from plantations in the Southern Cameroons.
Over the following decades, a number of subsidiaries were acquired or created and in May 1969 the company was renamed Fyffes Group Ltd, recognising the diversity and importance of the then 14 subsidiary companies.
It became an Irish company following takeover by the Irish group FII plc in 1986 - FII having been originally established as Fruit Importers of Ireland Limited in 1968. The combined company was initially known as FII Fyffes plc, but became simply Fyffes plc in 1990.
In 2002 Fyffes took legal action against
DCC plcDCC plc is an Irish diversified investments group and holding company, founded by Jim Flavin in 1976.-Products and services:Among other interests, they own the Emo oil distributor/filling station network...
in relation to the sale of its stake in the company, though DCC was eventually cleared of
insider trading"You want more insider trading, not less. You want to give the people most likely to have knowledge about deficiencies of the company an incentive to make the public aware of that."said-Milton Friedman, laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics...
.
On May 15 2006, the company spun off its property portfolio to a separate company,
Blackrock International Land plc, though it would retain a 40% share. In
September 2006September 2006 was marked by a controversy surrounding statements made by Pope Benedict XVI regarding Islam, during the same week as the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Steve Irwin, star of The Crocodile Hunter, died early in the month due to a stingray attack...
Irish newspapers reported that it was considering spinning off its fresh produce business, leaving Fyffes as purely a banana importer. On 2 January 2007 this occurred, with Total Produce plc listing on the ISE's
Irish Enterprise ExchangeThe Irish Enterprise Exchange is a stock exchange that was launched on 12 April 2005 to replace the Irish Stock Exchange's Exploration Securities Market and Developing Companies' Market...
and the LSE's
Alternative Investment MarketThe Alternative Investment Market is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange, allowing smaller companies to float shares with a more flexible regulatory system than is applicable to the Main Market. The AIM was launched in 1995 and has raised almost £24 billion for more than 2,200 companies...
. Fyffes itself, now a pure fruit company, will move from the Official Lists of the ISE and LSE to the IEX and AIM on 10 January 2007.
The company formerly operated its own fleet of ships, known as
Fyffes LineFyffes Line was the name given to the fleet of passenger-carrying banana boats owned and operated by the UK banana importer Elders & Fyffes Limited.-History:...
.
Fyffes now (2007) handles the entire banana export produce of
BelizeBelize , is a country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, composed of many cultures and speaking many languages. Although Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language...
.
External links