More than 3,900 pallets of Chiquita bananas from Ecuador arrived last week at the new Port Logistics Refridgerated Services warehouse, and Shooting Stars Post was there to capture it all.

SSP provided videography and timelapse video from land, sea, and air, including from inside the warehouse as the precious cargo was being unloaded. The ship started unloading at 8 AM and finished unloading around midnight, departing for its next destination at 8 AM the following morning.

The shipment was the first ever to the state of the art, 135,000-square-foot cold storage facitity, and the first shipment of bananas to Port Tampa Bay in over two decades! The Port Logistics’ cold storage warehouse includes on-site fumigation facilities, U.S. Customs and USDA inspection areas and a lab. It is the first facility of its kind on the Interstate 4 corridor.

Port officials said they were heartened that the warehouse’s first customer came away happy.

“Chiquita is very pleased with this first shipment of bananas through Port Tampa Bay as a new entry port for the distribution of our fresh fruit into the continental U.S. market,” Chiquita Brands International logistics director Manrique Bermudez said in a statement released through the port.

Check out the video below of the banana’s historic arrival to the port, and check out our vimeo page for more content!

Banana Loop from Shooting Stars Post on Vimeo.