The Boston Fruit Company (1885-1899) was a fruit production and import business based in the port of Boston, Massachusetts. Andrew W. Preston and nine others established the firm to ship bananas and other fruit from the West Indies to north-eastern America. At the time, the banana was "considered a rare and delicious treat" in the United States. The major challenge for all banana importers was to get the highly perishable fruit to the American market before it spoiled." Ship captain Lorenzo Dow Baker served as president of the company and manager of the tropical division. By 1895 "the corporation own[ed] nearly 40,000 acres, included in 35 plantations, and deep-water frontage [in Jamaica] in the harbors of Port Antonio and Port Morant. They owned their own lines of steamships, which they operated between those ports and Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Besides carrying their own fruits, they carried some outside freight, and afford passenger accommodations for many tourists visiting the West-India Islands."
Boston
In Boston, "Long Wharf [was] the headquarters of the tropical fruit trade, and here the Boston Fruit Company, an association of Boston merchants and West India fruit-growers, receive their cargoes of bananas, cocoanuts, oranges, lemons, and kindred fruits." In 1888 "a recent Boston paper, referring to new tropical fruits for that market, [said]: 'Two new varieties of tropical fruit will be introduced into this market by the middle of May, by the Boston Fruit Company; namely, mangoes and the avocado pear. The latter, which is ordinary pear shaped, is as large as an English pound pear, and weighs from one to two pounds. When ripe the fruit is generally green, but sometimes it is streaked. After they have been gathered a few days they become soft arid may be eaten with pepper and salt. The avocado tastes somewhat like butter or marrow and hence it is called vegetable marrow.'"
By 1890 "the Boston Fruit Company has got fully into work for the season, and steamers are now running regularly between Jamaica and Boston. As yet the cargoes are principally confined to bananas and cocoanuts. During April this company imported 9,077 cases and 44,202 boxes of oranges, and 39,354 boxes of lemons, together with 163,779 bunches of bananas."
Jamaica
"Andrew Preston chose the West Indies as the site for his entry into the banana exporting business. The Boston Fruit Co. also moved into the production end of the business when it bought plantations in Jamaica. The fact that ... Preston owned [the] sources of supply differentiated [him] from others in the business. Until then, it was unheard of for companies to deal at the supply end of the banana trade." "Along the northeastern and eastern coast of the island of Jamaica, extensive tracts of land are cultivated by the natives, on which are raised the yellow Jamaica banana. The Boston Fruit Company own about 10,000 acres of this land, and under the supervision of Capt. Baker, who resides there, bananas are raised for the Company's use. Since the cultivation of Jamaica fruit has been taken into the hands of Boston parties, the quality has improved steadily, and this year handlers of this fruit claim that the quality is the best that ever came from there, and they attribute this to the careful handling of the bananas all along the line, as well as their careful cultivation."
"Correspondence between Andrew Preston ... and his buying agents in Jamaica reveals the former's concerns with maintaining quality in a competitive market place: '[T]he time is past when importers can make a profit on thin and ordinary fruit ... and I trust our Jamaica people will keep it in mind at all times.'" In a subsequent letter, Preston acknowledged that his emphasis on quality was causing tension within the company but he refused to lower his standards: "I presume your people [in Jamaica] think we are disposed to criticize your selections but we are driven to it by the power of competition - naturally our best customers want the best fruit and I assure you we find it difficult to hold them with fruit of poorer quality than our competitors offer them. It is very plain to my mind that the successful company of the future is the one that controls the growing of its own fruit."