Banana News
Former business’ operations director, David Bateman, steps up to the new role, while Robert Wells becomes CEO
David Bateman has been appointed as managing director at banana giant SH Pratt.
Bateman, who has been with the business for two years, was operations director prior to this appointment. He will lead the day-to-day running of the business, as well as a number of strategic initiatives currently being developed.
Robert Wells, majority shareholder of SH Pratt, will move to the role of CEO, in order to provide further strategic vision
and direction.
In addition, Simon Trewin, commercial director, has been appointed as a full board member of SH Pratt, in order to reinforce the development of the company’s commercial direction.
A spokesperson for SH Pratt said: “As the business grows and develops, we will create additional companies within the SH Pratt Group family; and implement a new brand identity, currently in discussion. This will be implemented in due course.
“Pratt’s Bananas logistics division has seen rapid and successful growth in recent times. To take this part of the business to
the next level, it has been set up as a separate company ‘Kinship Logistics’, under the umbrella of the SH Pratt parent company.
“Kinship, whose name represents the family nature of our business, has been given a brand new fresh and vibrant identity, to help reflect the diverse range of goods we carry. It will also help our vehicles to stand out and be easily recognised. The new identity is currently being rolled-out.”
Tony Hunter, previously head of SH Pratt’s logistics, has been appointed as director of logistics for the new Kinship Logistics company.
Figure reflects growers’ success in overcoming an outbreak of a disease, Hurricane Tomas and the flooding of Christmas Eve 2013
St Lucia exported a record 5,000 tons of bananas to the UK in 2014, the former British colony’s ministry of agriculture, food production and fisheries has claimed.
The growth in exports of the fruit was made possible largely by “continuing government support to battle disease, provision of fertilizers and active cooperation between agriculture officers and the island’s remaining banana farmers,” the Caribbean island’s ministry said in a statement.
The figure reflects growers’ success in overcoming an outbreak of Black Sigatoka disease, the damage done in 2010 by Hurricane Tomas and the flooding of Christmas Eve 2013, according to the statement.
St Lucia’s banana-growing Windward Island neighbors – Grenada, Dominica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines – “haven’t been able to produce enough to export continuously,” the ministry statement also claimed.
In 2013, 28.8% of St Lucia’s exports were related to agriculture, according to data from the World Trade Organisation.
St Lucia’s principal export markets are the US, Trinidad and Tobago, the EU, Barbados, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.