May 04, 2012 10:43 AM
Jared Janes
The Monitor
Competing produce companies have found common ground along a strategic route through South Texas.
Don Hugo Produce officially opened its Rio Grande Produce Park on Thursday, touting the massive cold storage complex as the future of Mexican produce distribution. The venture has attracted Don Hugo’s former competitors — including fellow Mexican produce importers Farmer’s Best and Westpak — to a strategic spot along U.S. 281 as it develops into a major corridor for produce distribution.
The shift toward South Texas was driven by Mexico’s construction of the Mazatlan-Durango highway, a $1.5 billion engineering marvel that directly connects fertile farmland in western Mexico to population centers in the northeastern United States. Through massive underground tunnels and dozens of bridges across the Sierra Madre, the highway will make it easier for Mexican farmers who generally imported fresh fruit and vegetables through Nogales, Ariz., to send them to the Rio Grande Valley.
And that created an opportunity for a produce park like the one unveiled Thursday by Don Hugo president Jose L. Gonzalez, whose Chicago-based company specializes in importing and selling Mexican produce. But Gonzalez saw an opportunity in creating the 87-acre park off U.S. 281 and Farm-to-Market Road 2812 that will serve as a staging area for Mexican produce before it’s shipped north.
“There’s been a ton of interest” in the park, said Gonzalez, who has already signed up four tenants, including his own company. “It’s going to grow quickly.”
Produce imports into the Valley have increased by 40 percent in the past five years, representing a gradual shift away from Nogales. While the Arizona port remains the largest in the U.S. for importing Mexican produce, experts say the highway’s construction will make the Valley a viable option for farmers in Sinaloa and other western states that shipped along Mexico’s western coast.
The Mazatlan-Matamoros highway provides a direct path to the eastern seaboard — where much of the produce in the U.S. is consumed — and allows drivers to ignore U.S. weight limits, regularly carrying two trailers behind each truck on Mexican highways.
Leonardo M. Tarriba, the general manager for the Nogales-based Farmer’s Best, said interest in the highway extends beyond Mexican farmers. Asian companies with products bound for the United States’ eastern seaboard are also looking at Mexican seaports as a viable option to bypass congested California ports, saving time and shipping costs.
But Tarriba said he expects about half of the Sinaloan produce to be imported through Texas by 2014. Nogales will remain the port of choice for products bound for the western United States.
“With the new road, it’s going to be less expensive to come to Texas,” said Tarriba, whose company has rented space in the produce park to distribute its tomatoes, cucumbers and other Sinaloan-grown fruit and vegetables. The Rio Grande Valley Produce Park “gives us more options and facilitates shipping to the rest of the country.
“We can get to more markets and get products there faster.”
The first facility at the 87-acre produce park is a 227,000-square-foot refrigerated warehouse that will create an estimated 200 jobs. Once fully built out, the park will feature nine such facilities, bring 800 new jobs and create $100 million in total capital investments.
Gonzalez said he will begin the park’s next phases once all the space in the first warehouse is leased out.
Nelda Ramirez, the executive director of the Edinburg Economic Development Corp., said the produce park is located on a straight line for Mexican fruits and vegetables bound for the East Coast.
“This is a prime location,” she said. “It gives opportunities to those companies that will be traveling the highway to have a convenient location they can depend on.”
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Jared Janes covers Hidalgo County, Edinburg and legislative issues for The Monitor. He can be reached at jjanes@themonitor.com and (956) 683-4424.
Don Hugo Produce officially opened its Rio Grande Produce Park on Thursday, touting the massive cold storage complex as the future of Mexican produce distribution. The venture has attracted Don Hugo’s former competitors — including fellow Mexican produce importers Farmer’s Best and Westpak — to a strategic spot along U.S. 281 as it develops into a major corridor for produce distribution.
The shift toward South Texas was driven by Mexico’s construction of the Mazatlan-Durango highway, a $1.5 billion engineering marvel that directly connects fertile farmland in western Mexico to population centers in the northeastern United States. Through massive underground tunnels and dozens of bridges across the Sierra Madre, the highway will make it easier for Mexican farmers who generally imported fresh fruit and vegetables through Nogales, Ariz., to send them to the Rio Grande Valley.
And that created an opportunity for a produce park like the one unveiled Thursday by Don Hugo president Jose L. Gonzalez, whose Chicago-based company specializes in importing and selling Mexican produce. But Gonzalez saw an opportunity in creating the 87-acre park off U.S. 281 and Farm-to-Market Road 2812 that will serve as a staging area for Mexican produce before it’s shipped north.
“There’s been a ton of interest” in the park, said Gonzalez, who has already signed up four tenants, including his own company. “It’s going to grow quickly.”
Produce imports into the Valley have increased by 40 percent in the past five years, representing a gradual shift away from Nogales. While the Arizona port remains the largest in the U.S. for importing Mexican produce, experts say the highway’s construction will make the Valley a viable option for farmers in Sinaloa and other western states that shipped along Mexico’s western coast.
The Mazatlan-Matamoros highway provides a direct path to the eastern seaboard — where much of the produce in the U.S. is consumed — and allows drivers to ignore U.S. weight limits, regularly carrying two trailers behind each truck on Mexican highways.
Leonardo M. Tarriba, the general manager for the Nogales-based Farmer’s Best, said interest in the highway extends beyond Mexican farmers. Asian companies with products bound for the United States’ eastern seaboard are also looking at Mexican seaports as a viable option to bypass congested California ports, saving time and shipping costs.
But Tarriba said he expects about half of the Sinaloan produce to be imported through Texas by 2014. Nogales will remain the port of choice for products bound for the western United States.
“With the new road, it’s going to be less expensive to come to Texas,” said Tarriba, whose company has rented space in the produce park to distribute its tomatoes, cucumbers and other Sinaloan-grown fruit and vegetables. The Rio Grande Valley Produce Park “gives us more options and facilitates shipping to the rest of the country.
“We can get to more markets and get products there faster.”
The first facility at the 87-acre produce park is a 227,000-square-foot refrigerated warehouse that will create an estimated 200 jobs. Once fully built out, the park will feature nine such facilities, bring 800 new jobs and create $100 million in total capital investments.
Gonzalez said he will begin the park’s next phases once all the space in the first warehouse is leased out.
Nelda Ramirez, the executive director of the Edinburg Economic Development Corp., said the produce park is located on a straight line for Mexican fruits and vegetables bound for the East Coast.
“This is a prime location,” she said. “It gives opportunities to those companies that will be traveling the highway to have a convenient location they can depend on.”
--
Jared Janes covers Hidalgo County, Edinburg and legislative issues for The Monitor. He can be reached at jjanes@themonitor.com and (956) 683-4424.
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