19001969: Expansion and acquisition
In 1899, industrialist James Dole moved to Hawaii. James was the cousin of Sanford B. Dole, who had helped overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893, and became the governor of Hawaii in 1898.[11] Two years after James Dole's arrival, he formed the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (HPC). The HPC delivered its first shipment of canned pineapple in 1903.[12] Early products of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company were not marketed under a particular brand name, often assuming the names of the distributors. In the early 20th century, pineapple was still relatively unknown, and James Dole and other growers mounted a marketing campaign in magazines in what the company now refers to as one of the first nationwide advertising campaigns in the United States.[13]
The company made technological advances in the early decades of the 20th century in processing the fruitmost notably the Ginaca Machine, created in 1911that made canning pineapple commercially viable.[14] In 1922, Dole purchased the Hawaiian island of Lanai and turned it into the largest pineapple plantation in the world.[15] The same year, Castle & Cooke acquired 33% of the company via lease agreement. In 1927, the HPC began stamping its cans with the Dole brand name, with numbers to indicate the grade. These stamps ensured the Dole name would still be visible even if the label was changed by a distributor.[16] By the end of the 1920s, the company grew more than 75% of all pineapples in the world. However, the Hawaiian Pineapple Company struggled to stay financially sound during the Great Depression and Castle & Cooke took control of it in 1932.[17] The HPC was renamed the "Dole Company" and became a subsidiary of Castle & Cooke in 1961. Two years later, the company began expanding its fruit growing operations into southeast Asia, opening plantations and canneries in the Philippines and Thailand.[14]
While the HPC was getting established, the tropical fruit trade was growing in Central and South America, primarily with the banana trade. One of the major players in that trade, the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company, was established in 1906 by the Vaccaro brothers and Salvador D'Antoni as Vaccaro Brothers and Company. However, the quartet had been making shipments of tropical fruit such as bananas and coconuts, as well as other items, since 1899.[18] The firm grew rapidly in its early years, establishing a headquarters in La Ceiba, Honduras, purchasing housing and cargo ships, and building rail and telephone lines at its plantations. The company's rapid growth has been attributed to the destruction of property records in the early 20th century, leading the firm to take control of large swaths of land with the support of the Honduran government.[19] In 1924, the firm went public as the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company. In the 1920s, as Panama disease was destroying crops of the Gros Michel banana, Standard Fruit began looking for other cultivars to grow, settling on the Cavendish banana. Switching to the Cavendish allowed Standard Fruit to become the largest banana producer in the world by the 1960s.[20] Standard Fruit merged with Castle & Cooke in 1968.
While these companies were forming in the United States, the McCanns expanded their operations in Ireland, opening a store in Dundalk in 1902.[21] In the 1950s, the McCanns began consolidating with other companies in Ireland, creating United Fruit Importers and then Fruit Importers of Ireland, which became a publicly traded company.[22]
19702000: Expansions, selloffs, and splits
Ten years after its merger with Standard Fruit, Castle & Cooke acquired Bud Antle Inc., a California-based vegetable company.[24][25] However, Castle & Cooke began to struggle financially and was purchased in 1985 by billionaire David H. Murdock.[26] After the purchase, Dole began expanding its offerings by purchasing other food companies, buying several West Coast fruit and nut producers and distributors between 1985 and 1990, including Bonner Packing Company in California and Wells and Wade Fruit Company in Washington.[27] Meanwhile, in Ireland, Fruit Importers of Ireland purchased Fyffes from Chiquita in 1986.[22]
2000present: Recovery and merger with Total Produce
In the early 2000s, Dole struggled financially and was nearly bankrupt.[30] Murdock rescued the company, which had been publicly traded, and took it private in 2003.[26]
During this same period, lawsuits related to the use of the pesticide DBCP were filed against Dole. The company, along with Shell and Dow Chemical Company, was ordered by a court in Managua, Nicaragua, to pay banana workers $489.4 million in 2003, but the companies declined to pay the fine.[31] In 2007, a California judge awarded $2.3 million to Nicaraguan banana workers who sued Dole for its DBCP use. However, the ruling was overturned in 2010, with another judge noting a lack of evidence connecting the workers to Dole plantations and fraud committed by the plaintiffs' lawyers.[32]
