Cuyamel Fruit Company

Cuyamel Fruit Company, formerly the Hubbard-Zemurray Steam Ship Company, was an American agricultural corporation operating in Honduras from 1911 until 1929, before being purchased by the United Fruit Company.Samuel Zemurray, a Jewish Russian immigrant to the United States, founded Cuyamel to export bananas and sugar from the northwestern Cortés region of Honduras to international markets. Zemurray would later become the head of the United Fruit Company. Both Cuyamel and United Fruit are corporate ancestors of the modern-day firm Chiquita Brands International.

Zemurray started selling bananas in Mobile, Alabama as a teenager before moving to New Orleans, Louisiana. After earning enough profit selling bananas in New Orleans, Zemurray helped start a steamship line to import bananas from the tropics to sell in the United States. This firm was known as the Hubbard-Zemurray Steam Ship Company. Zemurray was able to expand his company by reducing banana spoilage in transit. Though information on this early incarnation of the company is scarce, records show that the Hubbard-Zemurray group was involved in at least one case before the Supreme Court of the United States.

After his achievements in New Orleans, Zemurray headed to Honduras to expand his company into banana production. Honduras, a Central American country close to the Equator, is well-suited for growing bananas. With its new operations in Honduras, Hubbard-Zemurray would eventually become Cuyamel.

Zemurray and his firm were not without competition. The main player angling for control of the Honduras banana market besides Cuyamel Fruit was a firm called “Vaccaro Brothers and Company.” The organization was started by three American brothers of Sicilian heritage- Joseph, Felix, and Lucca Vaccaro- and their brother-in-law. Vaccaro would become the Standard Fruit Company, which in turn would later be purchased by the company now known as Dole Foods.

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