How Miami's airport and seaport are working to get you fresher fruit and flowers

Miami Herald

6 days ago

Miami International Airport is boosting cargo capacity by as much as 50% with a new facility that broke ground on Monday, a sign of its expanding role in providing fresh fish, fruit and flowers to consumers across the East Coast.
The $141 million joint initiative with PortMiami will transform vacant land southwest of the airport at Northwest 74th Avenue and 12th Street. Slated to open in 2027, the 340,000-square-foot cold storage complex, about the size of six NFL fields, will allow more fresh produce and other perishables to enter the U.S. through Miami.
Hollywood-based Mandich Group, a privately held cold storage development firm, is putting in $98.5 million and the PortMiami will contribute $9 million. The port will also provide $33.5 million it obtained from a U.S. Department of Transportation grant.
'It will be the first center of its kind in the state of Florida and the largest in the U.S.,' PortMiami spokesperson Suzy Trutie said in an interview with the Miami Herald.
The airport and seaport receive lots of perishables. PortMiami puts them on trucks and sends them to MIA for storage and treatment before they're further transported. The new building will allow them to do more of that.
'For us, it's a way to expand our cargo business and trade,' Trutie said.
The new center has the capacity to handle over 1.5 million tons of agricultural cargo annually, Greg Chin, communications director for Miami-Date Aviation Department, told the Herald. That's half the 3 million tons the airport received in 2024.
Booming Valentine's Day
MIA is growing, not just in passenger volume, but in freight, and it seeks to keep up with rising demand. The amount of cargo it handled in 2024 was a record for the fifth straight year. That included the vast majority of fresh-cut flowers the U.S. imports for Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.
By Valentine's Day 2025, airport officials estimated that more than 90,000 tons of fresh-cut flowers arrived at the airport. That was also a new record for MIA, 3% higher than the previous record set in 2023. It totaled about $400 million in value.
Fed Ex
Private companies have taken notice. MIA is the site of FedEx's largest 'cold chain operation' worldwide, Basil Khalil, vice president of operations for FedEx Caribbean and Central America, told the Herald in February.
About three years ago, the shipping company made a big bet on Miami by doubling the size of its cargo facility at MIA, said the Miami-based executive. That brought it to over 280,000 square feet. FedEx has more than 500 employees at the site.
'The flower industry helps employ thousands of people in Colombia and here at MIA,' Khalil said.
It's not only during Valentine's Day that bouquets come in.
Several hundred airport, seaports and border crossings handle international trade, yet MIA stands out. In 2024, the U.S. imported $2.26 billion in fresh-cut flowers, an increase in value of 9% compared to 2023, according to data provided by Ken Roberts, founder and CEO of WorldCity, a data and media company that hosts the ustradenumbers.com website. MIA handled a whopping 81% of that.
Colombian carrier Avianca Cargo and LATAM Cargo both have robust operations at MIA. DHL Express is growing, too.
MIA has other works in progress for boosting cargo capacity.
In July 2024, the Miami-Dade County Commission approved a lease agreement with Miami Gateway Partners, LLC, to build a four-story cargo facility that would increase Miami International Airport's storage capacity by 2 million tons.
PortMiami
PortMiami is growing its cargo business as well. It traded with 149 nations and handled about 10 million tons of freight in 2024.
The space that broke ground on Monday — drawing officials including Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart and Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava — more directly benefits perishables.
The complex will include a cold chain processing facility that provides cold storage, warehousing, distribution and other services for perishable goods.
When the facility is complete, it will increase temperature-controlled storage space at MIA by as much as 34%, to 521,000 square feet, Chin said.
The cold storage area will cover about 80% of the new space. The remaining 20% will be a new area to eradicate pests from refrigerated cargo containers and air cargo pallets.
That treatment area will utilize non-chemical 'advanced treatments and inspection capabilities' to speed up inspections of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and other plant-based perishable items, said Trutie, the PortMiami spokesperson.
This will mark a change from the chemical treatment used today. The Norcross, Georgia-based company Reveam will be brought in, providing a new pasteurization technology for fresh produce it developed that doesn't use chemicals or heat, but electrons.
The treatments are certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and meant to expedite inspections for 'invasive pests and diseases that threaten U.S. agriculture.'
The new cold storage complex is expected to result in 200 new jobs. It'll have environmental benefits too: The early pest and disease detection will help preserve native ecosystems.
And 'it's going to reduce spoilage and inspection delays,' Levine Cava said at the ceremony on Monday.