Controversy of Chiquita

Good morning ladies and gentlemen,

Today I would like to talk about a topic I feel quite strongly about. The “Controversy of Chiquita”.

I divided the presentation into two major parts. Firstly I am going to talk about the company Chiquita, which I am quite sure everybody knows. Don’t you?

Secondly I will tell you about the Controversy of Chiquita. I will do this by telling you about some incidents that happened in the past in the countries the company is operating in.

So lets start off with the first topic, the history of the company Chiquita Brands International.

Everything started in 1870, when Captain Lorenzo Dow Baker went to Jamaica where he purchased 160 bunches of bananas. He then sold them in the US for a huge profit. Seeing how profitable it was to import bananas from Latin America, Captain Lorenzo decided to establish his own company, which he called “Boston Fruit Company”. Through a merger in 1899 the company was renamed as “United Fruit Company”. This name they kept for the next several decades.

The aim of United Fruit was to distribute bananas throughout the United States and Europe. To be able to do that many ships were bought to transport the bananas there. Only by 1930 they had a fleet of 95 ships.

In 1941 the Second World War brought the banana industry to a virtual standstill. United Fruit had to give its ships to the British and American governments so that they could use them for the war.

At the end of the war (in 1945) the Company changed its marketing by introducing the new name Chiquita and the Miss Chiquita character. (song, would show you, catchy song)

In 1961 the Company began shipping bananas in cardboard boxes instead of bunches, to protect the bananas against bruising.

After about a decade the company started to use atmosphere packaging to provide a low oxygen atmosphere to stop the ripening process of the bananas during transit.

In the 1990s the business did not go so well anymore. So in January 2000 Chiquita announced that it could no longer pay the interest on its $862 million debt. However the company managed to achieve a turnaround and as you know they are still selling bananas.

Basic facts

Chiquita was until the 1990s the biggest banana company in the world, controlling about one third of world trade. Despite coming close to bankruptcy in 2000, the company today still holds second place in world sales figures.

Its Headquarters are in Charlotte, North Carolina. More than 21,000 people work for Chiquita. The company operates banana plantations in Central America and South America in countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador and Colombia.

The Controversy of Chiquita

As I told you the company has all its plantations and workers in Latin America. That is why it became a major force in the economic, social, and political aspects of those countries. United Fruit was responsible for building many roads and train tracks. It also built entire villages with homes, schools, medical facilities, and factories. But as its power in the region grew, United Fruit sought to control the workers it employed and also the leaders of the republics in which it operated. So the fruit company spread its influence into every area of life including politics and the military. What I mean by that I would like to explain by giving some examples.

Example Guatemala:

In the first half of the 20th century, Chiquita invested a lot of capital into Guatemala. They bought productive land to plant their Bananas and controlled shares in Guatemala’s railroad, electric utility, and telegraph industries. As a result, the Guatemalan government was subservient to Chiquita's interests. The company did not have to pay taxes and the government guaranteed that the workers would not earn more than fifty cents

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