North Carolina’s ports at Wilmington and Morehead City recently reported their best fiscal year ever, and the humble sweet potato could contribute to an even greater increase in the 2015-16 fiscal year.

The sweet potato, along with pork and poultry, are prime candidates for export through the cold storage facility currently under construction at the Wilmington port.

North Carolina’s position as one of the highest producing pork and poultry states bodes well for the industries and for the ports in terms of cost of delivery from the production site, said Greg Fennell, chief commercial officer of N.C. State Ports Authority. The same is true for the huge sweet potato crop grown in the northeast part of the state.

The food staples are part of a strategy of growth laid out by the ports authority.

“We had a banner year last year; the best year we’ve ever had,” Fennell said. “That speaks volumes for the organization, the focus our people have. We have a strategy in place to double in five years on container and general cargo.”

The commercial team is focused on ocean carriers (those that bring cargo to the ports) and on BCOs (beneficial cargo owners, meaning the owner of the cargo inside the container). That focus also includes third-party logistics businesses and the trucking community.

“We are a congestion-free port,” Fennell said. “In the industry as a whole, lots of ports are congested.”

That means truckers wait hours to enter a port and perhaps an hour to exit, so their revenue is limited by wait time.

“We have some of, if not the best, turn times. When a driver gets through the pedestal, we measure in terms of single moves under 20 minutes and double moves about 28 minutes,” Fennell said. “In terms of vessels, the productivity we get with cranes is 45 moves an hour ... That’s the best on the East Coast, maybe the country.”

At the end of June, the authority had moved nearly 300,000 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units – an industry standard of measurement even though many containers are 40 feet long), said Cliff Pyron, spokesman for the authority.

That’s an 18 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.

The five-year strategic plan calls for increasing TEUs to 530,000; expanding business on the general terminals by four million tons; executing an investment plan for needed terminal, road, rail and channel infrastructure to support growth goals including establishment of a channel project and reliable intermodal service; and achieving financial sustainability to independently fund capital growth requirements, officials said.

“We’re looking to have two post-Panamax berths here,” Paul Cozza, CEO of N.C. State Ports Authority, said earlier this year at an event hosted by the N.C. Foreign Trade Promotion Council and the N.C. World Trade Association,
Cape Fear Chapter.

Those improvements would cost roughly $75 million of a total of $114 million Cozza would like to see invested in the ports over the next five years.

“Our competitor ports invest a lot more than that,” he said, according to a previous Greater Wilmington Business Journal article, noting that much of the funds come from revenues generated by the ports. As North Carolina ports’ capacity grows, he said, they will be able to fund an increasing percentage of improvements from their own revenues.

The five-year strategic plan is an ambitious one, but Fennell says they’ve started on the path.

They’re working to strengthen relationships with BCOs.

“The BCOs drive a lot of how that cargo will move through the supply chain. Carriers go to where the business is,” Fennell said.

BCOs look for reliable service that can pick up and deliver their product to distribution centers and manufacturing facilities.

They’ve also mapped out a plan to focus on specific ocean carriers they believe are best suited to the products of North Carolina, one of those being refrigerated cargo, which ties back to the cold storage facility that also makes it possible to import more fruits vegetables and seafood from South America and other markets.

“We know the market is there. We’re outlining for the carriers the advantages of this location,” Fennell said.

Other local commodities such as wood products are in the mix. That includes big names such as International Paper and Weyerhaeuser as well as the Enviva wood pellet storage facility under construction at the Wilmington port.

Fennell said there is much information and data available to identify potential customers including the commodities they move and where they originate.

“We use that data to develop a strategy on who and what business we will go after,” he said.

Once they’re identified, it’s important to get them into the ports.

“We have a product offering that differentiates us,” Fennel said. “We like to put our ports on display.”

At Wilmington and Morehead City, six to 10 customers and potential customers tour each month.

Long range, the opening of the Panama Canal to super carriers could be a game changer for everyone on the East Coast.

“What does that mean?” Fennel said. “We’re as interested in that as anybody else. We’re doing a feasibility study on the river. We’re looking at what other improvements or enhancements we might need to make to the terminal and general cargo facilities. When the canal opens, and when we see changes, we are well positioned to accommodate them.”