THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 20, 1996 TAG: 9609200532
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 73 lines
Flower bulbs from Holland, chocolate from Switzerland and nuts from throughout the world soon could be coming regularly through Hampton Roads ports to a cold storage warehouse here.
Virginia Cold Storage opened earlier this month in what once was Fisher Nut Co. Fisher Nut, owned by Proctor and Gamble Co. of Cincinnati, closed the 60,000-square-foot warehouse off Holland Road last March after earlier closing a peanut shelling operation in Edenton, N.C.
B.E. ``Eddie'' Marks Jr., a walking encyclopedia of peanut knowledge gleaned from 17 years of experience as manager of Peanut Growers Cooperative Marketing Association in Franklin and then as general manager of Virginia-Carolina Peanut Farmers Cooperative Association, is at the helm of the new operation.
Hampton Roads, Marks said, is in a world market, and Suffolk, because of its proximity to local ports, is on a fast track to becoming part of the network.
``Raw peanuts, we hope, will be our bread and butter,'' Marks said. ``But flower bulbs are already being stored in Suffolk. Candy is a possibility, maybe even Swiss chocolate.
``We could store meat on a short-term basis. There are lots and lots of things out there right now, ready to come in, that some of us just don't think about.''
Virginia Cold Storage opened Sept. 3. The next day, the company's first lot of raw peanuts came into storage. In eastern Virginia, nuts must be kept on cold storage from April through the warm months to prevent them from becoming rancid, molding or attracting insects.
Marks hopes most of the warehouse space will be for domestic products, particularly once the new peanut crop comes in, but he'd also like to set aside about 25 percent of the floor space for imports, especially nuts like Brazil nuts, cashews, filberts, etc.
To accomplish that, the company has applied for ``in bond'' status. That means that the Suffolk warehouse could take imported products directly from the ports of Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News and store them without inspection by U.S. Customs Service. Once the food products are to be released for domestic consumption, customs officials would conduct necessary inspections in the warehouse.
The application usually takes about 60 days to process, Marks said.
As the world market expands and foreign countries enter the peanut market, demand for storage space for nuts from countries like China, India and Mexico is likely to increase, Marks said. China and India lead the world in peanut production, with about 5 million tons a year. The United States, coming in third, produces about 2 million tons. Argentina, Mexico and Vietnam are fast entering the peanut arena.
Marks said he wants to be ready to meet the demand. The warehouse, built in two sections in the 1970s and totally renovated in 1993, has been cleaned and spruced up. Three of Fisher's former warehouse employees, with combined experience of more than 45 years, have been brought back into the operation.
The company employees five workers now, but Marks said, with the potential uses for cold storage increasing, he sees the number increasing to more than a dozen by early next year.
Marks said the in-bond application process involves background investigations on employees to avoid acceptance of contraband and to assure payment of tariffs.
Once Virginia Cold Storage gets that designation, the world is its market.
``I know most of the players,'' Marks said. ``We'll go to them one on one. This is one of the nicest cold storage facilities I've ever seen. We've got the facilities, and we've got the experience.'' ILLUSTRATION: JOHN H. SHEALLY II, The Virginian-Pilot
B.E. ``Eddie'' Marks Jr. is at the helm of Virginia Cold Storage,
which opened earlier this month in Suffolk in a former warehouse for
Fisher Nut Co. Marks hopes to tap into the world market through
access to local ports. by CNB