California Fresh Port

The Port of Hueneme began 80 years ago with a mission to provide California’s central coast agricultural community with an ocean link to the global market. Located approximately sixty miles northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County, it became known as “the Port the Farmers Built.”

In 1978 Del Monte Banana Company began a weekly service to the Port of Hueneme for the import of bananas and tropical fruit. This signaled the first major agricultural import interest to establish business at the Port of Hueneme and Del Monte today remains as the Port’s longest-term international customer.

In 1995, the Port of Hueneme opened the Del Monte U. S. Western Distribution Center, one of the most modern on-dock refrigerated facilities in NAFTA. That terminal is the second on-dock reefer facility to be constructed by the Port. Later in January of 2005 a 53,000 square foot expansion was completed growing Del Monte’s Western Distribution Center to 83,000 total square feet of refrigerated space.

The first, and largest, cooler facility is the NYKCool Refrigerated Terminal. This also is one of the most-advanced on-dock reefer facilities constructed in the NAFTA Trading Bloc and through 2007, handled Sunkist Growers export citrus bound for Japan, Sunkist’s largest overseas market. The NYKCool Terminal today handles imported bananas and other tropical products for Chiquita Fresh North America. Fresh fruit imports and exports transit between the Port of Hueneme and the port of Quetzal in Guatemala. The terminal is 140,000 sq. ft. and is equipped with a rapid cooling and cold-treatment capability that is not found in other on-dock reefers.

In addition to the total 223,000 square feet of refrigerated terminal the Port also has the ability to handle chilled and frozen cargoes in containers through dedicated on-dock yards.

The Port of Hueneme was a founding member of the Pacific Agribusiness Alliance, the California central coast region’s premier agricultural trade organization.

The Port of Hueneme’s commitment to the agriculture industry also involves the transportation of essential materials for farm production such as liquid fertilizer. Yara, one of the world’s largest fertilizer suppliers, operates a state-of-the-art automated terminal within the Port.

Yara has established their liquid bulk terminal upon approximately three acres on the South Terminal of the Port of Hueneme. The capacity of the tank farm is approximately 9.3 million gallons of fertilizer products for distribution throughout the southwestern United States.